I Advance Confused: A Look at a Not-So-Guilty Pleasure

First, an explanation of my protracted sabbatical:
After our beloved dog Sandy passed away last month, I spent two weeks dealing with a bout of what I can only call depression, though my particular appellation seems more focused on the "lack of energy" side of the equation than the "sadness" side.  I wasn't sad per se, at least not in a fully conscious way, but I definitely wasn't happy either.  I'm happiest when I am either working with gusto at some writing project, or enjoying an evening with my lovely wife and a lack of energy doesn't bode well for either activity.
With no small amount of encouragement from my wife (read: nagging and ass-kicking), my generally positive nature won out and I returned to work.  At that time, however, I was on the home stretch of my current writing project, and didn't wish to expend a single ounce of my still-fragile energy reserves on anything inconsequential.  Like this blog.  So I didn't blog for like a month.
Big whoop, wanna fight about it?
AT ANY RATE...
Today, after an invigorating bout of housework, I found myself listening to Coheed and Cambria's most recent record and it sent me on an inner tirade.  And sharing such tirades, those of you who have been with me since the beginning will know, is the whole reason this blog exists.  For good or ill.  So here we go.

Some time in the early 2000's I picked up a free, cardboard-sleeved copy of the latest Equal Vision Records sampler.  Indie labels will periodically do this; they put out samplers of all their artists and give them away cheap or free to encourage further sales.  I used to have a truckload of these types of CDs.
On this particular compilation was a band whom I had heard of once or twice from my good friend Ben, a band called Coheed & Cambria.  He described them, saying they sounded like "Michael Jackson singing for a hardcore band."  The song featured on the sampler was "Everything Evil".  I dug it. 
Years went by and I maintained a passing familiarity with the band's work, though I never really gave them a hard listen.  They were primarily a curiosity, most notable for their lead singer's unusually high vocal range.
Let's take a moment to talk about that.  This is what Claudio Sanchez looks like:

And this, for whatever reason is what his voice sounds like.
Not what you were expecting?  Me either.
During the years of passing familiarity, I became aware that Claudio's voice was the sole dividing factor on whether or not you liked the band.  That impossibly high register makes my manhood shrivel every time I hear it, and yet...  can't stop listening to them these days.
Around the time of their third album, I went ahead and acquired all three then-existing records.  I listened to a track or two on each, images of shrinky-dinks floating through my head.  The band rocks pretty hard - at least to those of us with musical tastes rooted in punk and metal. 
I couldn't decide whether or not I was a fan of the band at that time.  So I filed those three records away, saying to myself "I'll listen to the next record when it comes out, and if it's good then I'll go ahead and let my self like this band.  If it sucks, these records are going in the trash."
And then they came out with Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV Volume 2: No World for Tomorrow.  (By the way, that's quite a mouthful of an album title but it's nothing compared to its predecessor, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV Volume 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness.)
Good Apollo Vol. 2 rocks damn hard.  DAMN hard.  The vocals at that point in the band's career were becoming more tempered, using more of his lower range in addition to the familiar high-pitched wail.  They broadened their sound, becoming markedly less Emo, and much more Prog-Metal.  It was at that time that I accepted my fan status and fully familiarized myself with the band.
I, a rabid fan of concept-heavy progressive music, was delighted to find out that all of their albums were chapters in a single concept-album-rock-opera-sci-fi-mega-saga.  Each of the first four albums relates a chapter in the saga.  The fifth is the prequel to the first four.  Their sixth and seventh together form a tale set in the same story universe, though not directly part of the same narrative.  Claudio even has a side project, The Prize Fighter Inferno, that tells another story that is indirectly linked to the primary story universe.
And all of the albums are linked with comic books and/or novels that detail the story (not exactly, we'll go into that in a moment).
It's incredibly ambitious.  To tell a huge story like that through the difficult medium of rock music.  It's hard enough writing good rock songs.  It's really hard writing good stories (I know).  Doing the two together, while also crafting the lyrics and songs to stand on their own, so that an understanding of the story is not essential to enjoyment of the music... that's genius.
I won't go into the story here for three reasons. 1. It's really huge.  2. You can learn about it on wikipedia.  3. I haven't read it.
The comics have been through a good deal of difficulty in the publishing process.  The art department has been a revolving-door cast since the beginning, and the money/enthusiasm on the part of publishers has not always been present, so the actual output of the story has been VERY inconsistent.  There isn't even a single issue to accompany Good Apollo Vol. 2 yet.  Now that the band is pretty huge, they're going back through, re-releasing it, crafting some new stuff, making it better, continuous and consistent.  I've decided to wait for the 20th anniversary Complete Amory Wars boxed-set before I bother to turn a single page.  I'm not a sap, I don't want to spend a million dollars picking up this copy or that issue or the new edition.  I just want the story, so I'm gonna wait until they put it into one big, hulking thing and then I'm gonna buy it once. 
But I know most fans won't feel that way.  And that is why Claudio Sanchez is really freakin' smart. Not only did he diversify into multiple mediums, he parted it out so that he could build a rabid fan base, foaming at the mouth with anticipation for that next installment.  Granted, the guy's not getting super-rich on comics, but it's still a good idea.  And there's always that stack of cash from album sales to fall back on.
Now, apparently, Mark Wahlberg's company has optioned the thing for a movie.  How they're gonna squeeze it into one, I don't know, and if they're smart (which I believe they are) they won't try.  They have the groundwork laid to do a minimum of 5 movies out of this thing, and the band's following, plus sci-fi movie fans, plus comic book movie fans, plus general hollywood fans (presuming the casting is done well)...  that makes a pretty huge audience.  If Mark Wahlberg et. al. are halfway intelligent, they'll keep the fans on the hook and milk this thing for every drop.  That's what I'd do.  Plus a big story benefits from not being rushed, so it's the artistically sound thing to do as well.
As totally stoked as I am about all of the above, I still have a tiny part of me that hates the rest of me for loving this band.  And Claudio's voice isn't the reason.
The fact that has come to light over my research on the band and the story is this: Claudio Sanchez is one self-obsessed egotistical motherfucker.  And I can't really blame him: after all he would have to be stupid to not know how smart he is.  But sitting there and watching it go on... after a while I'm like "Okay, you're interesting!  I GET IT."
The thing is, the main character in The Amory Wars shares a name and physical appearance with Claudio.  And if that wasn't enough, in the comic of Good Apollo Vol. 1, the story takes a detour into the world of a character called "The Writer" who is writing the story of the main characters, who ALSO shares important physical attributes with Claudio.  IF THAT STILL WASN'T ENOUGH, Claudio's comic company also produces a corny, violent, jokey comic series called "Kill Audio".  If the connection there isn't obvious to you, I hereby forbid you from ever reading another word I write.  I've never read "Kill Audio", but from what I can see it's a cartoony version of him going around getting in fights.
*sigh*
As annoyed as I am by all of that, I still like this band a lot.  I can't help myself.  And it's not even a guilty pleasure, like my occasional listen to Korn.  I actually, genuinely like Coheed and Cambria.  I'll defend it in conversation, even though I'm aware of their faults.  Somehow, despite the improbability of everything, they pull it off.  They're WAY too big for their britches, but somehow it still fits.
I'm a nerd.  And Coheed is a band that beckons you to nerd out on them.  It's brilliant strategy on Claudio's part, that he can hook a skeptic like me, come off looking like a total bastard and still keep my approval.  It's like a fucking magic trick or something.
It's no mystery why I, an avid metal head, would like a song like this.
What doesn't make sense to me is why I like this song too.
And yet I HATE this song. It sounds totally lame to me.
But this one doesn't.
I'm frustrated.  But what the hell, you only live once.  AFI blows, but Coheed and Cambria kick ass.  I'll stand proud and say that to my most bearded-up, whiskey-guzzling, metal head friends.  Fuck you.

#coheedandcambria #amorywars #amorywarsmovie #sorryimnotsorry #claudiosanchez #metal #punk #emo #music

Oh, and that's another thing.  You're gonna start seeing hashtags in these posts.  I was an idiot to never include them before, they drive up your web traffic like crazy.  Even though the point of this blog is just to be my journal essentially, it doesn't hurt to create a little buzz around yourself if you can.  I eventually would like to charge people money to read my stories, you know.

#commercialism #capitalism #getpaid #shamelessselfpromotion #imawesome #yousuck

Random Album Review - Into the Electric Castle by Ayreon

[Repost From Old Site]
Progressive rock is a tricky business, and a hard sell even in it's prime.  Most rock listeners like rock music because it does a lot with very little (though I doubt they are aware they like it for this reason).  It's a very expressive music, but it requires no great deal of attention or concentration to enjoy.  The best rock music hits you on a visceral level; it gets in your bones long before it reaches your brain.
Not so with progressive rock.  It aims straight for the brain, and it demands almost infinite patience to really appreciate all a particular composition has to offer.  Prog rock, from an analytic standpoint, has a lot more in common with classical than rock.  The concepts are generally larger, or explored more thoroughly, and the music is much more intricate.  Though this demands much from the listener, it also offers more; the ideas that can be expressed are that much bigger.  Good prog rock is like watching a movie montage in your imagination.
But there is such a thing as music that is overwrought.  Occasionally, an artist will come up with a fairly simple idea or story and wrap it up in hours of impossibly dense guitar noodling and so many time-signature shifts it's hard to call the result music.
Such is the case with the album Into the Electric Castle  by Ayreon.  It's the case with all their work, unfortunately, but nowhere was it made clearer than on this album.  Like so many terrible bands in this world, Ayreon is a revolving door cast of musicians built around the ego of a single (admittedly talented) musician.  Ayreon is one of a growing constellation of projects revolving around Arjen A. Lucassen.  He plays nearly every instrument on all of his projects, and the "bands" really only exist so that he can take his projects on tour.  Sometimes this formula works, as it did for Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age).  In Lucassen's case, however, the ambition far outshines the execution.
Into the Electric Castle is a 160 minute double-cd concept piece.  All of Ayreon's albums are.  Keep in mind that the hardiest of human attention spans averages about 30 minutes for single-sense stimulation.  The story is about a handful of people from various eras in human history brought together in a mysterious alternate dimension to go on an adventure together, and guess where they're headed?  That's right, Into the Electric Castle. 
If that doesn't sound hack-ish enough already, Try some of the lyrics on for size:
Welcome! You have entered the cranial vistas of psychogenesis. This is the place of no-time and
no-space. Do not be afraid for I am merely the vocal manifestation of your eternal dreams. I am
as water, as air - like breath itself. Do not be afraid.
Look around, but linger not. Where I lead you will follow. Mark these words well. Ignite my
anger with your delay and punishments will come your way.
You are eight souls of the flesh, chosen from different eras ancient and modern. The trivia of
your mortal lives is unimportant to me... Indeed, some may die...
You have a task: to release yourselves from this Web of Wisdom, this knotted Maze of Delirium,
you must enter the nuclear portals of the Electric Castle!
This is a brief spoken word piece that begins the journey.  If you don't think that sounds corny, then leave this page and never come back.
I'm a sci-fi nerd.  I find it easy to suspend my disbelief.  I find it even easier to accept flights of pseudo-scientific fancy and impossible gadgeteering, but only if there's a point to it.  Only if there's some core of human expression, literary commentary or character development wrapped up in the cheap devices of the genre.
Ayreon forgoes these for the sake of sheer immensity.  The point here seems to be only to stretch the journey of the protagonists so that it will cover all 160 minutes.  One event doesn't really lead to another.  No single character seems to grow or develop as a result of the events of the plot.  And the "twist" at the end goes from vague to opaque.
The music, while an amazing display of technical ability, utterly fails to live up to the intended level of drama.  It makes adequate room for the well delivered vocals, and it peppers the songs with searing hot instrumental solos.  Unfortunately not a single second of it is memorable.  I'm sure there are people who could sing along to music like this, but only after deliberately taking the time to memorize it.  It's a meandering, hook-less mishmash of angular prog instumentals and soaring, Opeth-aping heavy metal chord progressions.  If "Stairway to Heaven" is like reading the Brothers Grimm, Into The Electric Castle is like reading a law school textbook.
Lucassen is so good at so many instruments that coming up with riffs is like taking a dump for him.  The problem is that he tries to write a rock opera around every one.  It's exhausting, and the payoff is a shoddily slapped together, pointless story.
The single worst thing about this album, for me, is that the story is nearly identical to one I tried to write.  In college I spent countless hours interweaving several short stories in an attempt to craft a novel about several protagonists who are taken to a mysterious alternate dimension.  After I listened to all 160 minutes of Into the Electric Castle in utter disbelief, I realized what a huge bullet I had dodged.  Not only had someone beaten me to it, but it was BAD.  I'm ever thankful that I wised up and scrapped the thing.  Who wants to read or listen for an eternity in order to receive at best, a jumbled, incoherent moral insisting that humanity is innately flawed?

Random Album Review: Octopus by Gentle Giant

[Repost From Old Site]
When one thinks of British progressive rock, probably the first two names to come up will be Yes and Genesis.  Both are excellent examples of the genre, with nods to classical and jazz music, extended song cycle compositions, deft instrumentals, long solo passages for nearly every instrument, psychedelic, story-telling lyrics and cerebral, challenging, concept-oriented subject matter.  But there is one band that very few living people still recall, their records buried in discount bins and their dynamic sonic prowess all but forgotten.  I am talking about Gentle Giant, one of the most original and talented bands to emerge from England in the 1970's (and that's saying something.  Lotta great stuff from that time and place)
It seems like it was an unspoken tradition of 70's prog that your fourth album had to be a self-styled masterpiece.  Yes had Fragile, Genesis had Foxtrot, ELP had Brain Salad Surgery (if you don't count Pictures at an Exhibition, which I don't because it's a live album of the band covering a classical piece), and Gentle Giant had Octopus.
Octopus was the unquestioned pinnacle of their career.  It consists, appropriately, of only 8 songs, each wildly different from the next.  I came across this band and this album in my days with Soulseek, a now-defunct P2P file sharing program, and this album has endured as one of the staples of my listening rotation, even as the haze of marijuana has cleared from my mind since college.  Each song could have been performed by a completely different band, and each could have been that band's magnum opus.  For Gentle Giant, it was but a milestone on a career that contains no less than 8 albums of this quality (and 2 that are decidedly lower), however, Octopus  remains the most immediate and accessible of these.
The album begins with "The Advent of Panurge" , a sort of sequel to a previous song "Pantagruel's Nativity".  It is a subtly creepy song about a demon who bewitches the title character from the previous song, becoming his friend.  It features dense, stunning keyboard and bass interplay underscoring the dynamic, operatic vocal.
The album then moves on to "Raconteur, Troubadour", a song that whimsically recalls medieval musicians with violins, asymmetrical drum work, and jazzy interludes that sounds like they're backing up a montage of travelers on horseback.
The band then brings out their classically informed take on muscular hard rock with the guitar-led "A Cry For Everyone"  The guitar and keyboard attack of the main riff would have made Deep Purple proud, but Deep Purple could never have pulled off the busy solo interludes with such flair and subtlety.
Things rocket into the stratosphere, however, on the next track "Knots".  The song centers on a dense, knotted interplay of acapella vocals whose impenetrable lyrics serve to enhance the message of emotional confusion.  In all the history of music, I have never heard a single song like this one.  It simply has to be heard to be understood.  [audio:http://peterambles.blog.com/files/2013/02/04-Knots.mp3|titles=04 Knots]The brief instrumental passages are masterful in their restraint, and devilish in their uncommon arrangement.  The song creeps you out, confuses you, and makes you bang your head all at once.  And the xylophone solo cooks.  Who does a xylophone solo right before a heavy metal breakdown?  Only Gentle Giant.
The only way to follow such an left field masterpiece is the side two opener "The Boys in the Band"  The song begins with a burst of laughter, as if to say that the titular "boys" were just having a bit of fun on this track.  However, Gentle Giant's idea of mucking around for fun on their instruments ends up being a song whose complexity is unmatched in the annals of rock and roll.  Yes has done things this intricate, but never so memorably.
The album takes a much welcome step back at this point for the quiet, violin led "Dog's Life" a picturesque fairy-tale about man's best friend.
From there, the band moves into almost radio friendly ballad territory with "Think of Me with Kindness"  The chord progression in this song could easily have made a hit for the likes of Billy Joel, and the sincere, heart-felt lyrics soar above driving piano and bass work.  People who know me well have been very surprised that I count this among my favorite songs, being that I generally gravitate towards more aggressive or complex music.  But this song takes the typical ballad and recreates it with such artistry that it becomes something totally different.
Album closer "The River" is nothing if not a jazz-rock masterpiece.  (I realize that's the third time I've used that word in this article.  I can't find another word that even comes close to describing these songs)  It rocks and sways like a canoe on the rapids, with ballsy guitar work and ethereal jazz keyboards as it's oars.  The guitar solo towards the middle could easily have been Pink Floyd in the Dark Side days.  The longest song at nearly 6 minutes, this one never gets less interesting, even for a second.  (6 minutes is positively short for prog rock.  How this band was able to pack so much variety into so little time is dumbfounding)
I also have the pleasure of owning a DVD of a live performance by the band during this era.  Every member, even the drummer, plays 3 or more instruments over the course of a 40 minute set, and each instrument seems like it's their primary one.  Quite simply, Gentle Giant are virtuosos at everything, from instruments, to composition, to arrangement.  And as insanely talented as they are, they never feel like they're showing off.  The music never feels overwrought or flashy.  It's just fun for the thinking man at a very high level of ability.