The Drumkit Meme

The other day I chatted through Skype with a few long-time friends and one of them, former bandmember now playing drums in a band called Ethereal Genocide, brought up that he was getting new cymbals, hihats and whatnot. He showed us a cool little program in the Sabian website that allows you to build your own drumkit, making things as wild as your imagination. We all three gave it a try and soon it devolved into a 'insane set' contest.

Of course it was gonna get silly anyway, why does the program let you add more than one chair, or as my friend calls it (he's drum-savvy), a ''throne''? So for the kicks, here's a drumkit where one has to spread his/her legs 180 degrees so be able to use both kick drums. Oh, and there's a seat on the other side, in case you get tired:

The Spreader:

My other friend made this rather hilarious literal interpretation of the drumset (don't ask how it's played):

Drumworld:

He was spewing ideas like crazy. He mentioned that it would be funny if this kind of silly crap caught on and became a meme. Although I doubt it ever will, it would be funny. His next idea was priceless:

Mr. Drums:

Feeling left behind, I cheated. Teehee, I did this. Of course, Sabian will never make a 4 feet hat like this... or maybe if you call them gay, they'll push up the ante. ''No we're not gay! Fine we'll do it!''

Uh, a Satellite Dish:

My now rival-in-drumkits came up with the temple of drums. He told me that it's no longer an aerial-view design, it's seen frontally (note: there aren't actual drums there but still):

Temple of Drums:

This will of course not catch on, but I asked my buddies what a 'snat' was... and then surprised them with this stupidity:

Yeah... ooh yeah:

Added features, a throne that covers both asscheeks for extra large people and a massive trigger pad that plays like a billion samples. I like the snats though, cutting a drum and a hat in half and glueing them together...

Black Metal v.s. Death Metal

When telling apart two closely-related genres of extreme music, sometimes, it's not the best thing to ask someone who is a hardcore fan. To illustrate the kind of confusing answers I got when asking the difference between black metal and death metal, I'll use the answer a close friend of mine gave me:

''Death metal has more of a 'black' influence in it, while Black metal has more of a 'death' influence''.

Uh-uh... I remember we had a fight, although not because of arguing, but because I found it so ridiculous anybody would seriously make such silly labels, and make one label the definition of the other one. If you don't know much about rock music (let alone heavy metal), it's quite likely that they will all sound the same to you. It's like me, I'm not really familiar with all the different kinds of, say, East European folk music styles, so maybe they'd all sound the same to me. Or to put it in more familiar terms to 'westerners', particularly people over 30, all electronic music (so labelled 'techno') sounds the same. (''How dare they call drum & bass something so dirty as techno or electronica!'' might be a d&b fan's reaction).

To be honest, while I have been listening to heavy metal (and playing it) since around I was 15 or maybe even before, I still can't tell black and death apart when someone plays a bunch of tracks of both genres. At face value, the word 'black' is just a metaphor for 'death' anyway. And perhaps I didn't (and still don't) care enough to really do. Oh, and I preferred progressive and experimental kinds of metal to black/death anyway.

If you read this far, chances are you probably like the music at least a teeny weeny bit. Or hate it bigtime and you're up for some trollin'. If you listen only to what's top 40, do not, I repeat, DO NOT play the following video. Not only will you find it all terrible, you will not be able to tell the difference between death metal and black metal... OK, after listening to it I too was left clueless.



So, you're not crying, your ears are not bleeding and you did not have a breakdown. Congrats. Of course I'm blowing it out of proportion anyhow. It WILL be like sandpaper to the ears of some people 'cause maybe that's the point.

After seeing several people's definitions and stuff, I think maybe I'd say that the line is blurry as hell, but when both kinds of music were born, they were a lot more different. Nowadays a lot more mixing of styles occurs anyway. So, here's the idiot's guide to sounding like you know what is the difference between Black Metal and Death Metal:

The Idiot's Guide To Sounding Like You Know What the Difference is Between Black Metal and Death Metal

Themes:
It seems to be widely accepted that a large part of what it is to be 'black metal' has to do with being anti-Christian and/or Satanic/Pagan/whatever (note the use of and/or). Black Metal is more of an ideology, just like some ridiculous punk sub-genres out there, such as Queercore, Riot Grrrl, Oi!, Nazi Punk, Christian-democrat-pro-life-Punkcore, etc.... Nihilism, depression and misanthropy also seem to be staple themes in Black Metal. Also, confusingly, they talk about death too. Huh.
Death metal, on the other hand, tends to focus more on negative emotions, sorrow, frustration, social alienation, but in a much more serious and dark way than the blues. Consequently, stuff like necrophilia, torture, rape and the suffering of the human soul are frequent subjects. Not saying that many Death Metal lyricists have ACTUALLY suffered in such ways... Also, like its name, death metal focuses on mortality and death. That's right, Death Metal is pretty much headbanging to a Memento Mori. What's more confusing is that while Death Metal frequently uses slasher movie-style violence in it's lyrics, it can also be about Satanism, anti-religious things and philosophy, just like Black Metal. Huh.

Musical style:
Alright, from the video above you might have thought: ''Yo, I can't tell them apart''. And yea, I guess you could say it doesn't really make a difference on this wide vast Earth. Unless you're a fan... Here's some interesting imagery used by a random internet user to describe what each 'sounds like':

''Death metal sounds like the reaper comming to war
Black metal sounds like a gothic castle filled with blood and the howls of suffering souls.''

Okay, that's nice, but if you're into the more musicological take on the distinction, here's the more or less controversial definition I formed after reading several people talk about it:

The vocals in Death Metal, ''death grunts'' or ''growls'', are usually deep and aggressive. I can't make out a word they say most of the time. Neither can I for Black Metal, which uses high-pitched shrieks, screams and snarls which seem to imitate, like in the clever imagery above, souls in anguish and that kind of crap. Could someone maybe pick a pitch in the middle?

Song structure and melodic/harmonic content seem to actually define both kinds of music a lot more than theme. In both kinds of music, traditional song structure is eschewed, yielding some unconventional things. More clearly said, Death Metal favours weirdass song structures with frequent tempo and key changes, while Black Metal favours unconventional songs where the verse-chorus distinction is not very clearly emphasised and long and repetitive stuff goes on. Y'know, if you had some sort of pagan ritual, you'd want to have some repetitive, jarring music that would put you in trance (or coma?). Thinking about it, Black Metal almost seems to be like funeral march music, with a languishing, militaristic and sombre feel, while Death Metal focuses more on the violence that came before said death, hence, it's more like a battlefield.

Death Metal seems to care more about the instruments and skills than Black Metal, which has more textural and atmospheric sensibilities. It's all about that dark nasty feel that gives ya chills, bro. Black Metal tends to be more melodic than Death Metal as a consequence. They revel in dark and ominous chord progressions and the use of the tritone, more aptly, Diabolus in Musica. All hail dissonance as a stylistic choice! But wait, Death Metal likes dissonance too sometimes. More like free jazz in the sense that it can be atonal (not follow any particular key or scale), or championing the use of chromatic runs. However these differences are trivial. Now there's so much Melodic Death Metal and Blackened Death Metal that these things become meaningless.

Black Metal guitars are pretty standard, just very fuzzy and lo-fi it seems. Low guitar tunings are very rare, strangely for a kind of music that wants to sound ominous. Guitars are often heavily downtuned in Death Metal, all the way down, so that the E string resonates a thick, heavy, chugging C (some bands even go as far as tuning all the way to B). Classic example of a riff where only the deep C power chord is used is Children of Bodom's 'In your face': (note that this is Melodic Death Metal, obviously, it emphasizes melodies unlike noted above)



Also, in Black Metal, technicality is frowned upon; guitarists seem to find guitar solos pointless, so go hoping you'll find many in their music. Death Metal, however, like it's grand-daddy Thrash Effin' Metal, is obsessed with solos. As I said above, it's the kind of music that emphasises prolific musicianship, you must have the chops for this kind of music (not that you can be a crappy Black Metal guitarist and get far).

Bass guitar as an aspect of heavy metal tends to be quite limited. In Black Metal, it is practically nonexistent; it plays riffs identical to the rhythm guitars most of the time and on top of that, it is buried so deep within the mix that it's inaudible. Death Metal features it a bit more, but I'm not quite sure the differences are significant... anyone know?

Other instruments such as keyboards are more prominent in Black Metal than in Death Metal (unless we include Melodic varieties where it's more common). These usually give the music an ambient feel, usually via some ethereal strings, haunting pads or whatever.

The final musicological comparison comes to the aesthetic of the music and its production in the studio; Death Metal doesn't seem to mind having polished, crisp recordings where every instrument stands out, while Black Metal is as lo-fi as you can get, most bands will at least once during their early years recorded everything in the drummer's basement, some get everything recorded into one track and don't edit it at all. This DIY aesthetic is very punk itself, it's all about getting it as raw as possible. More 'mainstream' bands like Dimmu Borgir who play Black Metal with symphonic elements in it have a higher production quality, and for that reason a few stuck-up hardcore fans of traditional Black Metal will claim they sold out and that they aren't real Black Metal. Who cares? The people who recorded stuff in their basements did it for their own pleasures anyway.

But wait! What about the drums, just as important in any kind of modern music? True, I almost forgot. Well, Death Metal drummers almost universally use a double bass pedal or will have two bass drums to create that rapid-fire pummelling kick rhythm. In addition to the double bass barrage, blastbeats are heard too. Yes, they take drums seriously. The thing here is that both Black Metal and Death Metal share a great deal in the percussion department. Any major differences, I'm not sure.

And yeah, for those not sure what a blastbeat sounds like, here's an example, the first two bars are more normal double-pedal rhythms, the third and fourth bars show the blastbeats, the repeating snare-hihat-kick beating:



I could keep going about the subject but methinks this is enough. If you want to listen to more music there's the video below, but I won't go into silly stuff such as why in Black Metal, silly costumes are more frequent, or who's blamed for church burnings (no finger pointing here), who's more often portrayed (with evidence or none) racist or anything. Black and Death bands take themselves way too seriously anyway.

Perhaps it's fascinating, dunno. I don't think it's healthy to dwell in negative crap all your life like there's nothing else left. As human beings, I think it's essential that we do something to stimulate other people's thoughts, ignite imagination, instil a culture of love unto the coming generations and to strive for peace of mind and soul. This music, in the long history of mankind, is just a phase, a counter-wave to some other thing that happened before. Put into the perspective of the thousands and thousands of years of human history, it's all contrived, silly. My advice, just listen to these kinds of music for your auditory pleasure. Beyond that, move on. Strive for your full potential.



P.S.; I'm not saying that Black/Death musicians are negative, anti-religious, resented or a combination of any of them. I know, music since time immemorial has been an outlet- consider the slave's work chants, a way to lessen the burden of working under the hot sun picking cotton. But then, I find it funny, how many metal musicians that portray such suffering in their music have had it that rough? Not generalising though, the ones who did, you guys, deserve a round of applause if you made it through.

Oh No, Puns!

A while I found an article titled ''Porn actor goes on rampage at video production office, police say; 1 dead, 2 wounded''. I can't remember how the heck I stumbled across this article, but I bookmarked it because I thought that the comments were just hilarious (if not really mean).
Here's the article:

"Police say a disgruntled employee, in the process of being fired, stabbed three co-workers in Van Nuys with a Samurai-style sword."

The man believed responsible for a rampage at a Van Nuys video production facility that left one dead and two wounded is a struggling porn actor who faced the loss of his job, authorities said.

Stephen Hill, 30, allegedly used a machete-style weapon in the attack, which occurred about 10:20 p.m. at a video distribution business on Hayvenhurst Avenue and Saticoy Street.

Los Angeles Police Department Det. Joel Price said Hill was both working and living at the offices of Ultima DVD Inc.

Price said Hill did production work and acted in several porn movies. But on the night of the attack, he apparently faced the loss of his job and eviction from the office.

Hill allegedly fled after stabbing the three co-workers. The victims were rushed to a hospital, where one was pronounced dead. There were seven people in the office when the attack occurred.

The LAPD is investigating the attack as a case of workplace violence. The suspect fled in a blue Toyota RAV4 with license plate 5YTC423.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Well, it's odd and tragic itself. And probably these comments full of puns will offend quite a few:

''I'm sure being evicted was HARD ON him''

''what? he didnt shoot it with his gun?''

''I'm sure he will receive a stiff sentence.''

''I thought this was a joke ad for a lumber company or a wood worker union or some hot dog company .... and on and on ...''

''Maybe he got some bad ass... And I can't even get any.. What a dork....''

''How do one gets to be "struggling porn actor"? Either you're one or you're not. I don't think anyone "struggle" to become a porn actor. ''

''Too bad, i really enjoyed his stuff''

''The cialis side effect strikes again!!!...i can see so many innuendos with this story like "Raging porn star still at LARGE"''

''one of is co-stars kept calling him' shorty' !! almost as bad as 'speedy' !''

''A "struggling porn star"? I thought porn was what struggling real actors / actresses, who have no marketable skills, fell into while trying to "make it big"!''

''So, this guy was going to get the "shaft"?''

''Now he will go from violating hot chicks to being violated by ugly dudes. What a moron.''

''If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword.''

''This is a bad time to lose your job, even for a porn "actor".
I'm surprised this kind of thing is not being reported every single day as more people lose their jobs.
It's tough out there people, so hold hands and share your lunch with others, just like you did in Kindergarten. :)''

This last one I agree with. The world needs more hugs. Naked hugs. (okay maybe not naked; that's situation-dependent).

Noah's Ark

I was gonna go through some crazy silly theory someone used to explain Pangaea according to the Bible and all... but I couldn't bother.

Instead, I'm gonna put these 3 videos making funny stuff out of the story of Noah's Ark. Amen.

Polyrhytms in pop music

I tend to avoid the music in the radio; it's derivative ballads and reggaeton, overproduced and uninspired music of all sorts, dance-rock-rap, all the things under the 'pop' umbrella term. Sure, there are amazing songs now and then which are pop and not all pop is inherently bad, but most is inherently... stupid.

It's probably just the fault of the people who listen to things and vote. ANYWAY, sometimes interesting things do get through.

I'm not a J-Pop fan at all. But this to me seemed awesome. You know why? No, it's not because prettygirlsstupidcostumeseverythingprettyprettycutekawaiiblargh, but because of that genius bridge in the song that sounds like NOTHING ANYWHERE ON ANY POP CHART AROUND THE WORLD.

Note: it starts at around 1:37.



I guess that the 'Poririzumu' (Polyrhythm) bridge is appropriate, something about love being like two different rhythms playing at the same time. Moving on from that, Marty Friedman approves this song. Therefore, he made a cover with the awesomeness only he can give:



I think I would have liked it more if that crazy part had been used more than just in the bridge of the song and in the end. Or make the end as beat-heavy as the first bridge. Oh well, it's a start. I didn't like how lifeless the voices sounded. But hey, most pop music tends to be lifeless!

Weaving Goddamn Webs

Do you use Twitter? Perhaps, if you have the time to indulge in such things. Facebook? Probably unless you're worried about privacy and well, you realise that nobody really needs one. A blog? Like this one or something else (even if it's the lame Fotolog)? If you have more than one account on anything in the web it probably means you have the time for that. I am sick of it, I don't want to sift through Facebook messages, or in any other social website (I have Multiply and it's the same story...). There's a lot more important work outside to do.

''But dude, then what are you doing posting on this blog then?''

Takes less time. Nobody else needs to have an account to comment. No hassle. Dunno, I thought it was a cool idea when I started it. I thought the same out of this stupid Formspring account but it seems it's dead. You can ask me something but who are we kidding, eh? The Multiply account I mentioned before, also. It was a nice place where to post random things, a lot like this place too. I befriended a couple of people there from all over the world and share things about anything. Really nice and fun people. Although we're all just online identities here, it's a shame maybe. I feel clogged up with all this stuff.

But then, Google Sites came in handy. It's like my own portable bookmarks page with anything I find useful. So that's more personal.

But then things mount up! For instance, my music project at Reverbnation, and then I'm releasing the music in Bandcamp too! Aaargh! It seems like it may save some time or be helpful promoting the music, but this is maybe a bit too much.

Then there's DeviantArt. I'm okay with it... I won't complain...
*coughlotsofmessagescoughcough*


However, there's an even more pressing issue here; if you've everywhere, it may be good when you're trying to promote something (so far my music and art provide me zero income), but it also makes you vulnerable to being found, um, and many other things. Here's Juanelo (in Spanish and translated below) summing up an important idea!


Juanelo belongs to Marco Canepa. All rights reserved. Vida larga a Juanelo.