More GTL for the last gasp of summer: Crowbar

This September we've had an Indian Summer.  And it feels like August when I was in high school in the 90s.  I'm lifting weights and in the best shape I've been in over a decade.  I feel young again.  And for GTL I'm listening to some old Crowbar.


They don't make albums that sound like this anymore.

Crowbar is a band I never listened to as a teen, but I should have.  I spent too much money on crap albums back in the pre-internet era and didn't want to gamble on an album based on one Beavis and Butthead clip and Phil Anselmo's name on the back as producer.


Yeah what a fool I was.

This album is great for lifting weights.  Slow and angry.  And it takes me back and feels nostalgic, even though I didn't listen to it back in the day.  Just the sound of those drums without triggers, the fat guitars with scooped mids, the yelling vocals that don't growl, hiss, or scream. It feels like back before air conditioning was ubiquitous and summers felt hot.  Back before everything became extreme and the Scandanavian invasion and Death Metal rising.  Back in the day.  Summer.  Uncomfortably hot; t-shirt sticking to skin and beads of sweat on brow.  Even the air smells different when it isn't cooled, condensed, and filtered.  The smell of summer.

Summer's quickly fading.  The cool crisp in the evening feels like autumn.  The start of school.  Of days less hazy and halcyon.  Days of the rote monotony.

Orange Creamsicle

I have a dog and when it gets hot I soak a bandana and tie it around his neck.  It is an old dog trick.  This summer is taking shape as the grasp of winter slackens and spring begins anew.  Spring is either cold and grey or hot and bright.  And old man booze is ready for hot and bright.  I am already soaking my bandana of delight in a well of intoxication in preparation for the heat of the summer to come.

I have already prepared a theme for this summer.  Orange Creamsicle.  The color orange will be the color of 2013.



Yes.  Come join me on a journey of intoxication from various substances that will result in tremens delirium.  We may even leave this earthly realm and have an odyssey of epic proportion with the help of some wonderful alkaloids.  If you put up with my music the drinks are on me.  My treat.

What are your plans for summer?  Summer requires planning, really.  You need to set the mood.  The theme.  The feeling.  The soundtrack will fall into place and everything just might go right.


Have you decided what booze and drugs to stockpile for the long hot summer sure to come?



Somehow right now the dream of summer feels like a fevered hallucination brought on by too much benedryl.

Some people don't like the heat.  I understand not liking the heat once it crosses 90.  That shit's unbearable.  Otherwise I don't mind it and I don't really understand the animosity.  People seem to have an aversion to feeling like they are alive.  They don't want to be too hot that they sweat or too cold that they need to wear long pants.  They seem to want a boring stasis of stale 70 degree grey.  But the bright sun is mercilessly hot.  And feeling that bead of sweat trickle down the side of your face is what it feels like to be alive in the summertime.  Doesn't anyone like feeling alive anymore?  Has the whole world gone crazy?


So what are your plans for the summer?  Have you picked a theme yet?  Don't wait too long because it will be hot before you know it.  Unless you live in San Francisco in which case it will not be hot and you will be wearing a hoodie in July and I will feel sorry for you.

Samhain and Steve Vai

Samhain means "summer's end".  Don't let the gringos fool you either, Mr. Booze will not tolerate churlish pronunciations.  "Sow-en", please.  I guess summers in Ireland end about a month later than here, because I celebrated Samhain on September 16th.  It was perfect.  Probably the last day to get in the upper 70s for the year.  Intoxicated out of my mind.  The veil between the worlds was pierced magnificently.

Retrospectively, it was foolish to recycle the previous summer's soundtrack.  It was hot and hectic and stressful.  And that is too bad, because I used to enjoy a lot of guitarist jams during summers.  And it is too bad because Steve Vai has released a new album of guitarist jams.  I guess a month ago.  Should have put it out like 3 months ago so it could be my summer jams.



Now let me explain to you certain things about Mr. Booze, man.

See I am a casual fan of Steve Vai, man.  One of the rare take it or leave it Vai fans.  I love albums like Passion and Warfare and Alien Love Secrets.  But I don't dig the vocal albums.  Like that last one.  You know, the one about religion.  Oh yeah, I guess they all kinda are.  And I don't dig like half of his instrumental albums.  Wasn't the Ultra Zone kinda flat?  And a long time ago?  And wasn't the Fire Garden too self-indulgent and bombastic?

So the clips of the new Vai album are out and to me they are the kind of Vai album I've been waiting for.  You know, guitary but not too self-indulgent.  Which, with Vai, is walkin' a fine line.


See what I mean?


It is too late to be the summer soundtrack of 2012. Which means it will have to wait.  Will it find a place on the godmachine some hot July evening in 2013, intoxicated with the heat and Spanish brandy?  I sure hope so.  Until then, I will do what I always do this time of year and play October Rust.

Forgotten classics: Low

Once upon a time a thrash metal band named Testament released an album called The Ritual.  I thought it was a good album but some people thought it was too midpaced, to polished, and was following too much in Metallica's footsteps.



Well I liked it anyways, but that isn't the point.  The point is that they followed it up with Low.  Embedding disabled, WTF?  Don't they know how the internets work?

James Murphy (Death, Cancer, Obituary) on lead guitar, and Eric playing solos for the first time.  Strangely he only seems to do leads when James is around.  What the deal guy?  No leads on Demonic but step on Murphy's toes?

Anyways this was a summer soundtrack album for me many ages ago, and it seems to have fallen by the wayside.  I even remember an interview with the band where they talked about how the Ritual was too polished and all Alex's fault and they returned to form with Demonic (which I thought was boring and midpaced by the way) but totally gloss over Low. You may have forgotten about Low, but I have not.



Who is GGGarth?

James Murphy again plays with the band on what is possibly their finest moment, The Gathering:



I liked Formation of Damnation too, and the lyrics were a little better than your typical metal album as well.  In fact for some coincidence all three albums - Low, the Gathering, and Formation of Damnation - were classic summer jams.  Timing man.

So to recap Low was a great album that seems to be overlooked.  Look again, fools!  Return to a former state, and a haze of hormones and video games and longing and loathing and all the things that made high school.  If I only knew then what I know now...and I would still make this my summer jams.

Directions

Sometimes music becomes the soundtrack to my life. Certain periods are strongly associated with the music I was hearing at the time. One period I remember fondly is the summer after my Junior year, when I listened to a lot of Shostakovich, Gregorian Chants, and At the Gates. Those were strange days. Prophetic dreams, a mysterious illness, but I digress. Perhaps the musical combination played a part?

I have a stock summer soundtrack that may go on the backburner this year. Albums that I refrain from playing autumn and winter. Usually it is:

Satriani - Engines of Creation
Project Alcazar - Reasons for a decade
Sinatra - Sinatra/Jobim
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brazilieras and String Quartets

This spring has turned out to be a bit odd already. So I'm looking for materials for my summer soundtrack. I have a feeling that this summer will need a theme. There are many ways I can go with this. I can buy albums by David Koresh and Charles Manson. That would certainly make for an odd summer. Or I could get something less...insane, like maybe the new Aghora album. But if I bought that would I need more Hindu philosophy too? Would I go down that road and buy some Occidental music of some sort? Would it make me pine for Amrut whisky?

Previously I had Fear Factory nostalgia, but this spring quickly morphed from late 90's zeitgeist to a time of decay. I worked in an office in a great location. It was a nice office, a short commute, with a park nearby and lots of lunch choices. After a time, things dried up; I was insanely bored, and also worried that each day would be my last. What point is there in having an employee with no work to do? Now I work in a different office, further away, in the basement. No windows at all. A cluttered dump. It is soulcrushing.



Only the dead are smiling!