Rock and Metal's heyday: the 80s

As the second part of my music reminiscence session (find the first one about ballads here), I chose a time that I hardly remember as I was not born or too young, but in my opinion spawned some of the best music the planet has ever seen. Of course, I am talking about the 80s. For various strange reasons, musically I even like that era of pop music with its overuse of synthesizers. Let's call it my pet peeve.
But back to the good stuff. 80s metal is awesome, the stuff they wore not so much. One striking feature that they all wore (all the way to the early 90s, by the way) apart from jeans or leather is bright white trainers. I kid you not, I will try and find the original video clips of the songs and you can see for yourself. Of course, Lemmy from Motörhead is an exception... he had white cowboy boots.

I found (and still find) it very hard to choose just a couple of songs representing the music that I listened to*.  Metallica alone had at least a dozen songs from that time, spanning several albums that I could mention. I settled for excluding songs that I will most likely mention in a different category (such as the German Powermetal Bands). This time, a couple of hits entered the favorites, too (unbelievable, I know). I have to, however, disappoint all the Glam Rock and Hair Metal fans. I was never into it and I find nothing manly about dressing as a woman. I listened to Twisted Sister very occasionally, but that genre never appealed to me.

Anyhow, enough waffling, let's hit it off. I'll start with a man that was partially responsible for the development of metal, good ole Ozzy Osbourne! This was after he left Black Sabbath to follow his own projects. Embarrassingly, I associate this song most with GTA and the Vice City series, as I heard it on V-ROCK. Still a fantastic song and the video shows an Ozzy that is not yet marked by his drug overuse. Fantastic track!

"Bark at the Moon" from the Album "Bark at the Moon"

I'll best carry on with Metallica's "Master of Puppets" Album. The monumental album written in 1985. This album is epic. I could have also mentioned a track from "Kill Em All", "Ride the Lightning" or "...And Justice For All" each with iconic tracks that I listened, but personally "Master of Puppets" was an album I actively listened to for days on end. The sheer aggression in James Hetfield's voice, the driving rhythm guitar and drums with Cliff Burton's virtuoso bass playing (the last recording before his tragic death), it all fascinated me and I couldn't stop listening to it. I find the opening track to be a splendid representation of the whole album.

"Battery" from the album "Master of Puppets"

How could I write such a list without the mighty Motörhead. The most prominent representative of the 'Heavy Metal Umlaut' (Mötley Crüe being another notable member). Strangely, I hardly ever listened to them at home, but during my time studying in Glasgow and Manchester, they toured pretty much every year and I saw them at least once a year, but usually more often as they also were at the festivals I went to. Live there is so much energy in the room (well on Open Air Festivals in the field, I guess). It's already a miracle that Lemmy is still alive, that chain smoking, coke snorting son of a gun. An idol and someone to look up to? Hardly. A remarkable human being? No doubt!

Of course, I chose "Ace of Spades" as it is the song that defines them best. Here the video with the original band with Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, "Fast" Eddie Clarke and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. Enjoy!

"Ace of Spades" from the album "Ace of Spades"

Now to a man that I admired quite a bit: Ronnie James Dio. What a voice, he had. He was known for being a cornerstone of the Heavy Metal scene ever since he sang for Rainbow. They say, he was the first person to sing about fantasy themes (thus sparking the Powermetal movement; I will always be thankful to him for that) in the Song "Stargazer". Apparently he was popular among fans and fellow artists alike. His appearance in the film "The Pick of Destiny", that was born from the joke song "Dio" by Tenacious D is a great example of that.

I listened to the song 'Holy Diver' for the first time in the car of my older brother (6 years my senior) who usually is a big Hip Hop aficionado (something I forgive him for introducing me to Dio). It shows everything that is awesome about this style of music. A voice that just takes you out of your seat and great melodies (both keyboard and guitars). Ronnie James Dio was a true pioneer of the music and until his death in 2010 at 67 years of age, he defined and inspired Heavy Metal music as it is today. Dio, I salute you.

"Holy Diver" from the album "Holy Diver"

Already four songs and so many more to go! I only just realised "how much" I was influenced by the music from that period! Incredible!

The following band, Savatage, is one of those bands where I only ever listened to very specific songs. I had the pleasure of being able to watch them at the Wacken Open Air before they split up for good. The gig was fantastic and pretty much a Best Of of their songs up to that date. I still remember Jon Oliva's quote after an error in the keyboard intro to the first encore, "Edge of Thorns". Calm as daisies, he mumbled into the mike: "Man, thirty thousand people watching and I f*#! up."

By that time (W:O:A 2002), the tragic death of the founding member and lead guitarist, Criss Oliva (he was killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver in Oct. 1993), already happened and arguably the band's creative zentith had passed. Afterwards, brother Jon Oliva, the other founding member, formed Jon Oliva's Pain and the focus shifted to that band and to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

The song "Hall of the Mountain King" from the same album is a great track, showboating all of what made Savatage a great band. There were other songs, I could have mentioned, but these were written in the early 90s, so I opted for this one.

"Hall of the Mountain King" from the album "Hall of the Mountain King"

Ah, Iron Maiden. There isn't really much to be said about them. I add them here, because many of their best tracks were written in the 80s, but admittedly I will cheat here slightly. I chose Fear of the Dark as the song. It is easily my favourite Iron Maiden Song, but it actually came out in 1992. I could have chosen songs from "The Number of the Beast", "Powerslave", "Piece of Mind" or "Somewhere in Time", but I feel that "Fear of the Dark" still fits into this category and its just such a honking great tune. Maybe, I shall write a piece about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and will mention it there again ;)

I must say here, I am also very impressed by Bruce Dickinson. The man is just so busy. In his freetime, he used to "work" as a trained airline pilot and he is/was quite regularly on British television in shows such "Nevermind the Buzzcocks". He makes it look like the day has more than 24 hours. Just impressive.

"Fear of the Dark" from the album "Fear of the Dark"

How could I have a list of 80s metal songs without including at least one of Manowar's songs. Despite all their rather fake, macho-antics (mostly by band leader Joey DeMaio... nnaise) that I found deterring ever since, I dunno, since I am 16 or so, their music remains pillar of my musical education. I listened to almost all their albums up and down for hours on end. I could have chosen a song from "Battle Hymns", "Hail to England", "Sign of the Hammer", the monumental "Kings of Metal" or "Fighting the World", they all would deservedly be in that list. It was hard, but I settled for the title track of "Sign of the Hammer" (I chose a lot of title tracks, I noticed...) as it is not as well-known nowadays and showcases Eric "Scream Evil" Adam's great voice and the band's unique song writing.

"Sign of the Hammer" from the album "Sign of the Hammer"

Ok, last song and how can I finish it off without mentioning Judas Priest? This band's history makes me smile. Due to Rob Halford's leather and studs attire, the band influenced what fans of the genre would wear for years to come. I find this one of music history's cruel but funny jokes. It was portrayed as very manly to wear this sort of clothes, while listening to metal. Unbeknownst, to his fans, however, Rob Halford wore it, because he is a homosexual man (he came out of the closet shortly before the millenium) and among that scene, it was a well-known way of dressing. Thus, a "homosexual" man defined how to dress very manly to show one's "heterosexuality". I really hope, I am not the only one who finds this hilarious.

What is more important for Judas Priest's music, however, is their constant will to experiment. Driven by Glenn Tipton's and K. K. Downing's guitar work rounded off by Halford's impressive vocal achievements, the band re-invented itself many times over and survived many a changing musical environment and always came out on top.

Admittedly, I mostly listened to the album Painkiller, where every song was a killer, but since it came out in 1990, I decided to go with one of their classics, to stick with the theme (One exception is ok, but two is really pushing it)

"Breaking the Law" from the album "British Steel"

This concludes my selection of the 80s metal scene. Unfortunately, I didn't show as many white trainers as I hoped, but trust me, they were part of it. I would like to, hereby, also give honorary mentions to bands such as Slayer, Megadeth and Alice Cooper who I've listened to, as well, but they never really were strong influences. I mostly listened to them, because friends listened to it at their place. So that doesn't really count. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did compiling it...

*For those who don't know the origin of these articles. It's not about the most influential songs of that era, but the bands that I listened for a long time.

I hate writing GUIs

Honestly, I hate it. Every time, I come across it, I end up getting to a point where I want to shoot myself. I had this moment today yet again. This time in the context with trying to write a very simple extension for Firefox. I mentioned before that I am an open-source contributor for the Mozilla Foundation, so for those one or two people who read this blog, it may come as no surprise that I also try to write other stuff for them, as well.

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Mozilla is created using a specific type of XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) called XUL (XML User Interface Language) and the logic is done using JavaScript. Maybe it is, because I am not interested in design and have no mind for, but everytime I try to do a GUI, I get bored and so disinterested, it is not even funny anymore. I am so much more interested in writing the actual logic. The stuff that does things.

GUI writing is repetitive and because there is so much of it, it takes ages to get into it. I get frustrated, because I know what I want to achieve and then about an hour or two later, I finally manage to get something implemented that somehow resembles what I want. I say "somehow resembles", but it is never in the exact right place or is somehow "off". It is a source of constant aggravation to me.

That's where WYSIWG Editors come in handy. Unfortunately, in this case, there aren't many decent and well maintained XUL Editors out there. I found that XUL Gear did not work on my PC, so I settled for XULExplorer. It's decent, but obvious that it is a one man effort.

Ok, enough whingeing about it. Back to it. If I ever get this finishes, I will write about it.

Metal Ballads: Personal Favorites

As my last post left me in a bit of a gloomy mood about the subject of Metal music, I shall start these posts off with metal ballads. I will try to not mention the absolutely obvious ones. In this case, you will not find Nothing Else Matters here, for example. If you wanna hear it, go listen to it elsewhere. It is really hard to condense this and I may end up adding stuff later in a moment of "WTF!!! How could I forget about this one?!?"

I'll start with one of my absolute favorites by Bruce Dickinson, that he wrote for his solo career that he started during his hiatus from Iron Maiden.

"Navigate the Seas of the Sun" from the album "Tyranny of Souls"

The next one, I want to mention here, because it was a very courageous attempt and, in my humble opinion, the result is stunning. Kreator, one part of the German Thrash Metal triumvirate (Sodom and Destruction being the other two) attempted to slow down a bit for their album Endorama. When Mille and his companions hammered this one out, I felt it is one of their best albums to date, but many of the die-hard fans were understandably taken aback a little. Many may not call this song a ballad, but if you know any other songs by Kreator, you may agree with me ;)

"Chosen Few" from the album "Endorama"

This next song holds a special place in my heart, as it is "my wife's and my" song. We played it at our wedding ceremony and whenever I listen to it, it makes me smile. Sadly, after Criss Oliva's untimely death, Savatage didn't exist for much longer and Jon Oliva does his own thing now. I didn't know this at the time, but I was fortunate enough to see them live once at the Wacken Open Air Festival in 2002. My very first festival.

"Believe" from the album  "Believe"

Everyone who knows me, won't be surprised to find this one in this compilation. "The Bard's Song - In the Forest" by Blind Guardian is another special song to me. During my time in Scotland at school, everytime after a vacation when it was time to pack the bags, some people would play "Leaving on Jetplane" by John Denver, but not me. For some reason the melancholic chorus and the lyrics felt right during that time.

Tomorrow will take us away
Far from home
No one will ever know our names
But the bards' songs will remain

"Bard's Song - In the Forest" originally from the album "Somewhere Far Beyond"

This one is another unlikely ballad. Written by the Melodic Death Metal pioneers from Gothenburg, At the Gates. I encountered this band fairly late, but given the sheer brutality of their other songs such as "Nausea", this instrumental caught me unawares. It is also impossible to play on guitar, by the way. Close your eyes and enjoy.

"Into the Dead Sky" from the album "Slaughter of Souls"

Whatever people may think of their antics, Manowar (or better Joey deMaio) know(s) how to write a good metal ballad. This one is an instant classic. No questions about it. Unfortunately, the much awaited moment I saw them live for the first time, left me as a non-fan. I was completely underwhelmed. This will, however, never take away from the quality of many of their songs. I chose this one instead of "Heart of Steel", as most people in Europe don't seem to know this one all too well. Apparently it became a hit in the US after 9/11...

"Courage" from the album "Louder Than Hell"

Another melodic death metal legend, In Flames. I loved many of their albums and their music was my step into melodic death from Gothenburg, Sweden. Awesome, awesome band. All the more surprising to find such a song on one of their albums. Many bands have one ballad per album, but you'd be hard-pressed to find another one here.

"Dawn of a New Day" from the album "Reroute to Remain"

My first and only song sung in German is, how else could it be, Rammstein. Yes, they also wrote a ballad. Apart from being pretty much the only Industrial Metal Band that I like musically, I really appreciate Till Lindemann's lyrics, too. The way he finds double entendres within the German language and the way he constructs his lyrics are befitting a master wordsmith. My hat's off to the man.

"Ohne Dich" from the album "Reise, Reise"

We're nearing the end of my selection and for a change, I wanted to put in a classic rock ballad. The Canadian Thrash Metal band Annihilator (yes, I know the names are a little funny) around Jeff Waters came up with this. I chose this as a representative as I have always had the feeling that US American Heavy Metal with a classic Rocker Hardass theme is what people see as typical Heavy Metal. Oh how wrong they are. Anyhow, without further ado from the guys that also wrote the brilliant song "Alison Hell"

"Phoenix Rising" from the album "Set the World on Fire"

I was looking for a good ballad to close out this small selection. I chose the band HammerFall as it is one of the few ones that to this day, I enjoy seeing live and they are also fantastic writers of ballads. "Glory to the Brave" is from their first album and I appreciate the raw emotion of it. It is not as clean as the productions in following albums. Like the entire first album, this song is fantastic and I don't get tired of listening to it. Enjoy.

"Glory to the Brave" from the album "Hammerfall"

This concludes my little selection. Honorable mentions go to Manowar's "Heart of Steel", Helloween's "Keeper of the Seven Keys" and "If I could Fly", Tiamat's "Carry your Cross" and Iced Earth's "When the Eagle Cries".

I hope anyone who read this and listened, enjoyed it as much as I did compiling the selection. I could go on for awhile on this topic, so it was an easy and enjoyable start. Depending on my mood, I shall carry on with a specific genre fitting my state of mind at the time. Ciao for now and good night!

Musical standstill at a certain age?

Why do many people reach a musical standstill once they have a certain age? They don't even listen to new albums by bands they like, anymore. Just listen to their old albums. I have made this observation on many occasions. Friends and acquaintances who consistently explore new bands within a certain genre of music are in my experience the exception rather than the rule.

Like it was for many, when I was younger, music was not only the skillful creation and arrangement of sounds created by tools who are made for this specific purpose carried through space by the vibrations passed from molecule to molecule through collisions in the gas mixture that we humans consider air, it was more of an image. I was (and I guess to a lesser extent I still am) heavily into Heavy Metal and its many children, cousins and nieces. I did not only enjoy the music, but liked hanging out with the people who listened to the same music as the majority had a similar outlook on life. Nowadays, I still listen to the music, I listened to back then, but I do not look for new bands or albums (or rarely). Thus I am now exactly a part of those people that I mentioned at the beginning.

I wondered why that is and after some considerations I think I can now pretty accurately say why that is.

When I first got into Heavy Metal through bands such as Manowar or Metallica all those years back (I think I was 11 or 12 and couldn't even speak English), I was instantly hooked. I then started to get all those CDs and started to read a popular Metal magazine called the MetalHammer. Because of them I was always pretty up to date and soon other bands similar to Metallica and Manowar followed. HammerFall, Savatage, Blind Guardian, Dio, Iron Maiden, Rage (not Rage Against the Machine, they would come later) the list goes on.

After awhile I heard the pattern and when I listen to new bands from that genre, I would think: "Ah, they're trying to sound like band xyz." But instead of listening to them then, I would listen to band xyz instead, since I know their songs and I have their albums. It took awhile, but I eventually got... not bored by it, but I wanted to hear more. That is when I diverged and tried all types of Metal and trust me there are many. Just check out this small clip from the Documentary "Metal - A Headbanger's Journey"

It helped that I went Metal Festivals by now and I lived in big cities (Glasgow, Manchester), where many bands stopped by on tour, so I randomly saw new bands presenting their stuff and I got exposed to even more. Power Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Gothenburg scene, Medieval, Folk Metal (or was that Pagan Metal?), Hardcore, Grindcore, Deathcore, God-knows-what-core... maybe even Satan-knows-what-core.

But over the years it was always similar to the pattern I explained above. So at some point, I wouldn't find anything really new in Heavy Metal and I would, lo and behold, listen to different music genres.

I have a fairly open mind, but even that reaches its limits. I adore Irish/Scottish Folk music, Punk is pretty much restricted to almost worshipping Bad Religion and especially Greg Graffin's lyrics, I like generic Rock (R.E.M., Springsteen), Electronic music can be cool, Country is... funny, classic is soothing, few Reggae songs, but I can't stand Jazz, Soul, HipHop and most of what is coming out of the Radio and those casting shows (it just sounds interchangeable to me).

I am, however, now at a point that when I listen to music, I instantly recognise a pattern and very seldom I would encounter a music style that is new to me. The worst part now is that I do not even enjoy going to concerts as much. There was one particular incident that I recall vividly. I used to adore a band named In Flames. They toured regularly and I would see them live and checked out their new album asap. After my move to Belgium, they happened to be in Brussels, where I now live. I wasn't up to date anymore on what was going on (I missed two albums as they sounded the same to me), but thought I shall go along, just to listen to the old stuff. Well, they almost played exclusively their new songs (the ones I feel sound all the same) and I was then the old geezer who just stood there bored and then was the only one who sang along to the three songs that noone else ever heard of. It was a sobering experience (after 6 pints that is quite a feat).

As a consequence of all this, I do not listen to music as much anymore. I cannot listen to the same music all the time, so it has a lower priority now and I do other things. Usually those other things require concentration (programming and the like) and listening to music then is actually disturbing. This was unthinkable only a couple of years ago!

An off-shoot of this is, that I have now reached the point I mentioned at the beginning that I reached a musical standstill. It is sad to me, because listening to Metal and going to festivals and concerts was such an important thing to me back then. As a last effort to stem the tide, I will use my next few blog entries to post select YouTube clips of Metal songs that are amazing to listen to. If the enthusiasm lasts, I may try to categorise it somehow... maybe by genre (80s Heavy/Speed Metal, Ballads, Melodic Death Metal-Gothenburg scene).

To finish this rather bleak blog entry off on a kind of high note, I shall leave you with the involuntarily funny interview of Norwegian Black Metal Legend, Gaahl from Gorgoroth.

Encrypting your online communication - A reaction to Prism and the NSA

I previously talked about my helpless anger regarding Prism, the NSA, the arrogance of the US' government and my mistrust of my government's activity's with regard to this affair. I have observed an interesting reaction to the situation. The German online newspaper I like reading, Spiegel Online (or short SPON) is now giving guidelines on how to encrypt your e-mails, so that it is less easy for the secret services of this world to follow your every communication.

I think it is great, that a newspaper with such a long reach (most read German online newspaper) is giving guidelines on how to encrypt your mails. A feat that most "normal" users would find daunting and confusing.

The problem is, though, that for this to work, one would need to give a decryption key to the recipient of the mails (no you can't send it by normal mail, that would defeat the point). Being the sceptic that I eternally am, I highly doubt that the general population will ever get to the point where this is the norm.
The majority of people will not do it. If it is due to lacking know-how or plain laziness is up for discussion here. I am sure that if I started to encrypt my mails right now, I can only think of very few of my contacts that would follow through with this. In fact, many of my "computer-literate" friends wouldn't bother with it at all. For pretty much either my reasons or laziness. I'm almost so certain, I would bet on it.

I am tempted to start a survey on this topic and ask friends... If anyone reads this, I would be very interested, so please do add a comment at the bottom.

RPG Video Games as a couple activity (Final Fantasy XII)

I am currently doing something, I would have never thought I would enjoy. Watching "someone else" play a video game.

First off, you may have noticed, I love video games. Now I have less time to play them but nonetheless, I love playing them. Especially role-playing games of all kinds... but it's usually me who does the video gaming.

I am currently watching my wife play Final Fantasy XII... and it's a lot of fun. I would have never thought it. It became an activity together. I always wanted to make her understand why I like playing PlayStation or PC games, so I suggested that she played a game I don't know yet and I'd watch. I never thought she'd go for it and here we are 5 hours into the game in the Nalbina Dungeons with Vaan, Balthier and Fran.

I am mostly amazed by the fact that she has problems that I never even considered problems. Orientation and the use of the various kinds of maps is one such category. She can wander aimlessly in certain areas for hours not finding the target of her troubles. Killing the Rogue Tomato was an undertaking that had me in stitches, because the thing always run away and when she followed, she got lost :D

All in all it's a hilarious activity with me having an advisory position on my wife's "Final Fantasy staff".

Let's hope, we'll manage to beat the game before a more, long-lasting fun activity tickles our fancy...

The long term effects of the outrage over the NSA, Prism, Tempora scandals

I am currently forcing myself to write this. "Why?", you may ask. Simply, because it matters to me. As moot and untelling as the message of this article may be, I want to voice my opinion about the subject of the privacy scandal, espionage, Prism, the NSA and whatever else there is to say about it. The Brits were exposed for something similar right afterwards with Tempora. Sadly, I have no illusions that the Germans have a similar organisation.
The media has been full of it of late ever since Edward Snowden made us aware of the scandal. Just run the keywords "Prism" and "NSA" through your favourite search engine and you will find plenty of material.

I, personally, think that the man has balls to do this and should for all intents and purposes be declared a modern day hero. I am no lawyer or in any way well versed in these matters, but what the NSA has done must violate several laws and/or human rights of citizens in the Western World.
Unfortunately for him, I don't think it will matter in the long run. I have long lost any faith in the people supposedly trying to protect me. As a German citizen, I am already overwhelmed that our chancelloress even addressed the issue. And then that was that.

This is the harrowing conclusion, I have to draw yet again. I am apathetic to all these events. One scandal after the other. Everytime we find out more about how the government or the industry tries to take away our privacy, monitors our every move, decides, what is best for us... and I sadly stopped caring. It has been shown again and again. No matter what we do, the effect is minimal. It will happen anyways, slowly but surely.

We have a vote to democracy and we can "threaten" with not voting for the people in power. So what? The political parties are all the same and their inofficial credo is "Stay in power! For as long as we possibly can!" So we essentially just exchange one egomaniac for another. Once the deed is done outside of our country all bets are off anyway. Have you recently seen a Western political figure being tried in Den Haag? Without saying names, certain politicians should defend themselves for starting a war under false pretences that ultimately proved to be wrong.

Take again the Edward Snowden case. He has done something big. He exposed one of the governmental organs of the self-proclaimed stalwart of democracy and righteousness as a violator of two fundamental human rights (the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression). One would expect that he would be protected by the Western World's judicial system for this...
Well, in actual effect, he first had to hide in Hong Kong, a part of China. Now they are really renowned for respecting the Human Rights... not. Now he is ogling with stays in Russia, Ecuador or Venezuela. Several other "stalwarts" of democracy.

What did I say earlier? Oh yes, no matter what you do, the effect is minimal. I haven't seen an obvious change in the way things are handled now. Everyone's up and arms, but it will die down, everything will go back to normal, and the governments will go back to spying again. The thought fills me with so much joy, that I will probably go and drown myself in booze. Good night.