Seb's weblog

To introduce the place, this was my first time at the Jardin Moderne, which is a venue colocated with music related associative structures (studio…). It can be found on the remote outskirts of Rennes, in the middle of an industrial zone.

First part was managed by l’Oeil du Sourd, a Magma-type band with keyboards (handling also most of the bass duties), drums (most of the time, I thought it was a bit dull, but the drummer is almost the best part of the show, even when not playing), guitar (unimpressive with no tone or presence), violin (like it), sax (duh) and vocals (the closest element to magma, since I couldn’t make any sense of what was sung, and hopefully this was intentional). There were a few good spots, but most of the time it lacked something (more groove or rhythm?). They played for about one hour.

And then, it took 45 mins to shuffle everything on stage to set it up for One shot, because the stage itself is small and it just requires work. But it meant that the main band would start at 23h, and I think it’s a bit late for just one first part band, but c’est la vie.

So, here comes One Shot. As usual, the groove and atmosphere is occupied by the bass, while the rhodes and the guitar go around. I still love Daniel Jeand’heur on Drums.

And then, it ended, and it was all rain outside. Great.

Duh, haven’t posted in a while, and still hard to check what I have discovered since last time. I know: I talked about the red fragrance of albums.

• Chinese Democracy, Guns n’ Roses: obviously, the best, the greatest (ahem);
• Performing this week, Jeff Beck: nice take of classical titles from the Master;
• Universo Inverso, No Gravity, Kiko Loureiro: nice guitar work, close to his Angra work for the latter, totally different for the former;
• A cruel world, Bloodsimple: well, it was their first (or earlier) album, so I guess I could have expected something a bit below their current standard. Some songs/sounds feel a bit out of place;
• Bone machine, Tom Waits: a different sound (yeah I know, I’m probably too much influenced by movies);
• A Piano, Tori Amos: love her;
• Seven moons, Jack Bruce & co: great (and I mean Great) blues sound;
• Three legs of trouble, Stonerider: hard to find any information about this band since they seem to have changed their name at some point for this one. Really cool rock band; Listening to one song, I thought they had been influenced a bit too much by Nazareth (although in the same song, they almost use the same riff as Hendrix’s Stone Free), but in fact, later on the album, they cover Hair of the dog (also covered by GnR);
• The ruiner, Made out of babies: weird. Not bad, but just weird modern rock;
• Monochrome, Helmet: no what I expected (and regarding the guitar solos, this is in a bad way);
• A lullaby for the devil, Deadsoul Tribe: wind instrument, ‘nuff said. Well, that and the weird mix with the guitars (which wouldn’t sound that bad at first) drowned;
• Who killed Amanda Palmer?, Amanda Palmer: Way more interesting than the two latest Virginia Dresden Dolls albums, to me. And I need to check what’s the story with Neil Gaiman, since he’s one of my favorites authors;
• It’s not how far you fall, it’s the way you land, Soulsavers: not fully digested, but Mark Lanegan’s in;
• Lighbulbs, Fujiya & Miyagi: soft but interesting;
• Entertainment!, Gang of four: I’m not that much into 80’s, but this albums makes me change my mind somehow because it rocks, impressive;
• Zozobra, Bird of Prey: not fully digested. Heavy stuff, but?

• Hold on now, youngster, Los Campesinos!: funny stuff, really. This would be the one I could most recommend to my irish readership (yeah, you). I’m just afraid of the “you’re listening to what?!” look I may get next time we meet up.

Some people who know me have probably expected that I would do such a review, but it is very hard to summarize and write about such an album that I have been waiting for years like many other fans. And it is also hard to judge songs as new when I have been listening to some since 2001 (with bootlegs from the Vegas shows, not to mention the 2006 Paris concert that I attended where 5 songs from the album only released last week were played).

Is this the best album ever made? I wouldn’t say so. Is it a good album? Yes, sure! Would it please a Appetite for Destruction-era fan? I wouldn’t bet on it. It somehow sounds like Guns n’ Roses, but with less a stone-esque, punkish sound. This is overall a really good rock album, but it is overproduced at times and contains last-minute glitches and dubious choices (most that can only be really heard by those who have been following the various leaks). (more…)

People, if Chinese Democracy was already reported to have cost $13M in 2001, maybe giving such a number now would be misleading since most of the tracks were recorded a few more times since then.

If the world is gorgeous. Not that much of a rocker, but mind-blowing in its kind.

Replacing Brian May’s nice and clean job with some butchered (probably fretless) thing. (more…)

Usually, I write a post with a list of CD I recently acquired with a short review of mine. Well, that’s “usually”, but I haven’t done so in a while, so I kind of lost track of the CD I reviewed (or what my review would be), so I won’t list everything, but just the most important ones:

• Red Harvest, Bloodsimple: Great, Impressive, Aggressive. It just rocks. This is just grand: The first song with lyrics from Jim Morrison, or Dead Man Walking which makes me want to kill someone (or at least to get a try at the mosh pit if I ever cross them on stage), and the drummer is great (since they seem to be a Spinal Tap story hiding, I wonder if it sounds the same live). So many headbanging songs! My only regret would be that sometimes the singer sounds like James Hetfield and I ain’t no ‘tallica fan!
• Chicken Noodles II, Buckethead & Travis Dickerson. I know, I sound like a Bucket fan, but really, this one is different. Is that a bird? A plane? Superman? Hendrix? No, that’s Buckethead! It sounds so bluesy and soulful that at first I could hardly believe my ears.
• whatever, Paul Gilbert: He’s damn good. But it’s far better (or less cheesy) when he doesn’t sing, really.

• Red Album, Baroness: Recent but vintage sounding, sometimes feeling like the doors gone metal. Weird but not that bad.

Dear Trent,

Your website sucks. Deeply. Oh, not as much as, say, voyage-sncf (which is the high level standard for suckage), but it sucks in its own way. It sometimes looks (and works) like a weblog or even a photoblog, but there’s no history. And when you’re posting 5-6 photos in a row, only crackheads doing a reload every minute can have a chance to pick all of them.

Your website sucks. And to compensate the high suckage level of your website, people built their own website posting everything you post there. But like I said, if they don’t have enough crack incoming, they might miss a post every now and then.

There are different solutions. You could probably enable full content in the corresponding feed, this way we will at least be able to see the content and you won’t have to change the visual aspect of your site, if that’s the problem. And this way, we don’t have to think about the thousands of fan comments (“I love you, Trent”, “come play to my house”, “alessandro is so sexy”, etc…). And I know you can post this content to the full-content feed, because you just do it for the “real” news. Another solution would be to post those pictures on flickr. It’s not like it would be difficult, again, since you’re already doing it for a selection of photos. Having pixelised phone camera pictures in the middle of dark blurry in-concert (not even large) pictures wouldn’t be such a drama.

Thanks for listening, Trent. Think of the ki^H^Hwebsite.

PS: don’t forget to free Robin in time for the VMA. Let him rehearse a bit, I’m sure Josh can help him too.

I ain’t no number, but I got my copy of The Slip

• Resurrection, Chimaira: Brutal and well-executed metal. Real good, nothing to complain about;
• Diatribes, Napalm Death: Even though I went to their concert, I don’t think I heard any of those songs, but Cursed to crawl is one my favorite from the songs I knew beforehand;
• Angel Down, Sebastian Bach: He told the press that he wanted a huge drum sound. I’m not convinced on this one, but I was amazed at how heavy the guitars sounded. However, some songs just sound like cliché, so it overall gets a thumb down;
• The Wall, Pink Floyd: Did I already tell you that I dislike thin fender-like guitar sound? Well it is still true;
• “V” is for Viagra, Puscifer: Country boner is enough to give the record any bonus point, really;
• Anthems for the damned, Filter: I expected a lot from this band and I was a bit deceived. It’s a bit of a mix between Army of anyone (which wasn’t already what I expected), John5 (he has a distinctive notmykind of sound) and some kind of a Filter-best-of (I mean: there are almost the same guitar riffs from another song). Not convinced;
• Retox, Turbonegro: Maybe a bit darker than Party animals but still good rock & roll stuff;
• No, Virginia, The Dresden Dolls: I still can’t find the catchy songs from the first album, and it feels like the overall drums/piano interaction is more casual;
• Scarlet’s Walk, Tori Amos: nice songs, and still a good mastering of the sounds and the mixing table;

• Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright, Ashes Divide: It sometimes sounds like A Perfect Circle with a different singer, or with a different tempo but still with catchy songs. But every now and then, it would be closer to a so-so college rock band, where something important is missing.