As of late, life has been pretty kickass. School is going well for a change, the band is coming up with great material and getting some cool shows, and I have found new love with a beautiful Skylar :) Yep, I’m enjoying a rare awesome section of life lately…
“One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is statistics.” - Joseph Stalin”
“I don’t need Satan, I don’t need Christ, I got the blues!” - Abbath, Immortal”
Hey everyone. Been a while since I was on here. Sorry about that, but I have been pretty busy lately. Work is taking most of my time (12 hour shifts). I will make an effort to get on here more often.
But ANYWAYS over these past few months, I’ve gone through a series of changes. Now, before you sit there, and go, “Oh man…he didn’t convert, did he?”. No, at my core, I am still the same person. Metal, easy going, etc. But I feel different.
In the past days, I felt like shit half the time and was convinced that I was worth nothing to anybody. Probably largely in part due to my ex, (remember how I was convinced I actually liked her?) who didn’t do much besides belittle me, put me down, and generally make me feel like shit. She drove me insane to the point where I was having dark thoughts. And I’m a very light-hearted person as a rule, so you can imagine.
Once she was out of my life, I immediately felt better. More free, more content with myself. Not feeling down all the time again. From this point, I started doing more of the things I like : spending time with those I love (friends, family), writing more music. I even got my license and a job, and I must say, working to make money is a wonderful feeling.
I am closer with my mom and dad now, I’m closer with my friends, and there’s even a love interest in the mix. It seems like life is finally going my way.
So this is not some “life-changing experience” I had, it just might help to better explain where I have been for the last little while. I feel 1000% better about everything I do. Anyways, sorry if this blog came off like I was bitching about my past life, cuz that wasn’t my intention whatsoever. Just felt like writing about this. Anyways, that’s all for now. Cheers! \m/
“A casual stroll throug lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
- Friedrich Nietzche”
Location : The Serbian Centre, Sudbury, Ontario
The Bill : 3 Inches of Blood, Goatwhore, Wolven Ancestry, Hallows Die, Catharcyst
So for the longest time (actually, just since 2005), I’ve loved 3 Inches of Blood. I’ve loved them since my friends’ older brother played me their song “Deadly Sinners” from 2005’s Advance and Vanquish album. I loved that, in a void of shitty deathcore bands and lame, derivative metalcore groups, that a band, and a Canadian one at that, was keeping the spirit of 80s metal alive with their awesome blend of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and other such bands.
Needless to say, I was stoked beyond belief when Mark Howitt (singer of Wolven, and organizer of Sudbury’s most kickass metal shows) announced on Facebook that he was bring 3IoB to town! Man! I, as well as pretty much all of Sudbury’s metal community, were super stoked!
The show was at the Serbian Centre, which has become a regular venue for metal shows here. Legendary death/black metal bands such as Behemoth, Origin, Macabre, Cryptopsy, and Kalmah have played on the Serb’s stage.
That being said, however, the PA system is less that awesome (Macabre’s Corporate Death complained about it after their set in 2009). It’s a small place, comfortably fitting probably 300 people.
But man, people sure showed up in legions for this show.
The night started with local band Catharcyst, who are Sudbury’s longest running metal band (I’m not sure the specific number of years). They put on a good set, probably one of their stronger sets that I’ve seen.
Next up was Hallows Die, from Missassauga, Ontario. They play a blend of melodic death metal with progressive and thrash elements. Their set was awesome, and the band members obviously had a shit ton of fun playing (their singer was always joking in between songs, once calling the band “Carrot Top and the Ugly Trolls Band”, or something to that effect).
After them was Sudbury’s own Wolven Ancestry. Let me just say that I’m a huge fan of Wolven, and with good reason. Their sound is awesome and unique (Pagan-influenced melodic black metal), their stage prescence is brutal and their live show is intense. This show was no exception, with their set churning up some of the most ferocious mosh pits of the night.
Second to last was Goatwhore. Oh, Goatwhore. I was familiar with Goatwhore’s music, and I was a fan, particularly their song “Apocalyptic Havoc”, off of 2009’s Carving Out the Eyes of God. Their set was awesome, perhaps even better than 3 Inches of Blood’s. Their blend of old-school black metal and thrash was just awesome. They even closed their set with “Apocalyptic Havoc”, and I must say I was one happy lil fucker.
And finally, the headliners, 3 Inches of Blood. What a great band. Great live sound. One complaint about their set was that the crowd seemed a little lethargic. Maybe it was because Goatwhore and Wolven had just played. I also had to miss a few tunes because my friend was sick, which sucked. But regardless, they destroyed, and they were an awesome end to the evening.
All in all, probably one of the most intense, spirited shows I’ve ever been to. The energy of the crowd was awesome, complete with stage divers and a Wall of Death near the end. If you weren’t there that night, man that blows, cuz you missed one amazing night.
Directed by Lee Unkrich
Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles
Let me begin by saying I’m sorry I was absent for a while (mostly to you, Emmie, I know how much you love my comic wit, haha). I’ve been busy wasting my life away being unemployed, and not to mention exams just finished so studying for those took up a large part of my life for a while. But anyways, here I am, at it again with another film review.
This time around, however, it’s not a slasher film (God knows that I have a lesser opinion of those since my last review), but instead, a CGI children’s movie. And you know what? I goddamned well loved it. Don’t judge me.
People, I love the Toy Story franchise. I grew up on Toy Story part 1, I had all of the toys to match (Woody, Buzz, etc). And, in a rare example, I dearly loved Toy Story 2 as well. So it was no shock that I was incredibly excited when I heard that they were making a 3rd movie. In fact, I daresay I felt 7 years old again, when I heard they were making a 2nd movie.
The story starts out with Andy, now all grown up, packing for college. He’s debating whether or not to give away his old pal Woody, and the rest of the toys. By a quick turn of events (I’m not gonna get into detail, watch it yourself. It’s worth it), they are whisked away to a daycare, where they believe that they will have a happy life with all of the children that attend said daycare. Woody, however, doesn’t want to stay and leaves immediately. But as it turns out, the daycare is not such a wonderful place after all. It is more like a prison, with the oldest toys acting like guards.
The animation is nothing short of dazzling. Technology has really added to the already ground-breaking graphics of the original Toy Story films.
If you watch this film, there is a darker element to it that wasn’t there in the originals. Many of the children in the theatre were covering their eyes and/or crying during some scenes.
All in all, Toy Story 3 was a wonderful film, easily worth the 11 year wait between 2 and 3 (Seriously, Pixar? Come on.) Highly recommended for anyone who loved the originals. Or anyone in general.
Just watch the damn movie.
Directed by Samuel Bayer
Written by Wesely Strick and Eric Heisserer
I’ve been a diehard horror movie fan since I was 13 years old, when I discovered that people could show other people getting dismembered, maimed, stabbed, etc. and not get accused of being a murderer. And up until this year, I had never seen a Nightmare on Elm Street film. And I must say, they were classics of the genre.
Then 2010 rolls up, and some douche decides, “Hey! I know! Let’s completely ruin a classic horror franchise by replacing it with talentless actors, a shitty script and a Freddy Krueger that was not so scary and clever, but rather, laughable and silly. That’ll make us some money!”. Yes, reader(s), it seems the movie business has a remarkable talent for taking good movies, classics even, and butchering them. Such is the case for the 2010 re-imagining of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.
A rare example of a horror movie being remade well was Rob Zombie’s “Haloween”. I loved it. Another example being the 2009 remake of “Friday the 13th”. I also really enjoyed it. This led me to believe that, if they could remake Jason Voorhees in a cool new way, maybe they could to the same with Freddy. Why did I think this?
Freddy Krueger went from being comically tasteless in the original films, to a new, less clever, almost childish Freddy. In fact, the only similarities were those famous claws.
Sample Dialogue :
Girl : “FUCK YOU!!”
Freddy : “Ouh, sounds like fun…”
I mean COME ON!!!! This sounds like something I used to hear in my primary school playground, not in a horror film!
The storyline was no redeeming quality, either. It basically tells the story of a bunch of teens (played by like 30 year old actors, a huge piss off in my opinon) who all have this dream of a horribly deformed man who kills them in their dreams. And, of course, if you die in your dream, you die for real. As the story progresses, the characters learn that the killer, Fred Krueger, was a child molester who preyed upon them when they went to school. But the “catch” is that they don’t remember going to school together until high school. And it turns out that all of the parents of the teens tried to make them forget about the whole incident. So, Fred, comes back to kill all of the teens because they told their parents and got him killed.
Sound unimaginative? That’s cuz it is.
Alright, well, there were a few positive things about this movie. Like the special effects…oh wait, all it was was fake blood. Ok, well……the acting was good….nope? Ok…..yeah, I got nothing. Alright, in all seriousness, I did enjoy the kills, and some of the parts made me jump. But it isn’t hard to make someone jump, really…
Overall, for someone who loves horror films, particularly old ones, this was a disappointment of Battlefield Earth-like proportions (ZING!) Avoid, unless you haven’t filled your quota of watching people getting stabbed. Even then, try your local video store for one of the original NOES flicks.
“If you go into an ordinary school, you will surely see half the children wearing Morbid Angel, Autospy and Entombed shirts, and once again I will vomit! Death black metal is something all ordinary mortals should fear, not make into a trend!!” - Dead, Mayhem”