Corey_Lazarus

Which is precisely why I dislike them, and most power metal at that. You and I have had some talks about the style, and my main reason is usually because it seems like the band's just doing everything for the sake of doing it, and not because it aids in the song itself. That's why I love Iron Maiden. Even the lesser-quality songs (discounting the Blaze era, which just doesn't exist) still have a good flow, and nothing they do seems so "out there" that it ruins the song. Fuck, "Where Eagles Dare" is a very quality metal song, and it's the same 3 or 4 riffs over and over for nearly 6 minutes. But there's just enough little changes in melody and harmony over them to make everything seem interesting. Maiden never blew their load all on one song, which is why I think they've had such staying power. That and, of course, their amazing live show. Expect a Sounds of the Underground thread started in a little bit.

Here's the lineup: ...ANYBODY ELSE SEE SOMETHING MAJORLY FUCKING WRONG WITH THIS SHITTY LINEUP AFTER THE AWESOMENESS OF '04 AND '05?! '04 had the Judas Priest reunion with Halford, and Slayer. '05 had Iron Maiden, the Black Sabbath reunion, Rob Zombie, Shadows Fall, Arch Enemy, The Black Dahlia Murder, Mastodon, and The Haunted. ...so 2005 is pretty much all metal/hardcore (with the exception of Velvet Revolver), 2004 had a decent amount of good metal bands...and we get THIS SHITFUCK lineup?! Man, I'm fucking glad Slayer's around this summer. Slayer, Mastodon, and Children of Bodom all on one bill...fuck Ozzfest. But really...HOW DO YOU FOLLOW UP LAST YEAR'S LINEUP WITH THIS PIECE OF SHIT?! I see...4 bands I wouldn't mind seeing live (Strapping Young Lad, Unearth, Black Label Society, and System of a Down). HATEBREED? LACUNA COIL? WHAT THE FUCK?!

Downloading isn't killing the industry. The industry said that VCRs and other home recording machines were killing the industry in the early 80's, and then look what happened: that turned out to be a whole new market from which MORE money could be derived. Apple had the right idea with iTunes. Low prices for downloadable, CD-quality music. Not everything is available, but most is. So why can't the movie industry take note of this and start their own movie downloading ring? There's always going to be those assholes that will release pirated material. They're just that: assholes. Don't get rid of the medium because some of its users are bitches.

No, actually, I don't. There's nothing going on in televised wrestling right now (I added the word "televised" because I don't have the income to buy tapes of Japan and RoH and other indies after bills and booze) that captures my interest. I hate Cena, like Edge but not enough to sit through the rest of Raw to see him, am never home on Friday nights to catch SmackDown, and the "new" ECW is an abomination on XPW levels. The few times I do sit down to watch, it's always with my girlfriend and sometimes with her and her older brother, who both watched from the start of the Attitude era until the InVasion, and they watch and see faces they remember seeing then...and don't want to watch anymore because the stars of that era are boring now. And then comes TNA. Here's a company that has so much to offer, more than WWE does to the point where it hurts, and what do they do? Jeff Jarrett (never-was) vs. Sting (washed up) in the main event. They have the hottest young star in the entire sport, Samoa Joe, in their ranks, and while I like them giving him the slow build over the course of a year to the main event, it's almost a foregone conclusion that Jarrett will beat him via nefarious means. Wrestling isn't fun when you know what's going to happen without reading the dirtsheets.

You know, if Billy and Scott/Charlie patch their differences...we're either getting a new SOD album or a tour this year...hopefully an album.

Yeah. Dragonforce is one of those bands that you either like or you don't. I respect their musicianship, but...their songs are fucking awful. Catchy at times, but I always feel as if I'm listening to somebody beating their cock into my ear whenever the solo's and harmonies come in. Nothing musically is used to set the mood, it's just to show everybody that they can do it. A7X covering Pantera...there's something so incredibly wrong with that. Oh, that's right...PANTERA WERE A BUNCH OF DRUNKEN BADASS REDNECK MOTHERFUCKERS, AND AVENGED SEVENFOLD ARE A BUNCH OF FAGGOTS THAT LOVE GUNS N' ROSES AND MOTLEY CRUE. 'Nuff said.

It's not stupid when you vehemently dislike a wrestler that not only has a shitload of political clout backstage, but also plasters his vanilla ass all over the show. Jarrett was interesting as the rebellious heel, because he was actually doing something that he hadn't done a whole lot before (as far as on-screen goes): take shit from nobody and just keep going for the belt. Then he got the belt and retained interest from November '02 (when he won it) until April '03 at what SHOULD have been TNA's biggest feud blowoff in its first year: DESTINY. But no: he fucking buried 5 people in one match by no-selling shit that even HULK FUCKING HOGAN would've jobbed to and pinning Raven clean. Then he smothered himself all over the program week after week - even during the World X Cup shows, which were designed to showcase nothing but X-Division talent - and it got to the point where a lot of fans just stopped watching and stopped going to the shows. Interest picked back up not because of Jarrett, not because of Sting, and not because of Christian Cage. It is my honest opinion that interest in TNA picked back up in the last year due in a LARGE part to Samoa Joe. He's different than anything else that's going on in wrestling right now, really. Why? Because he's an unstoppable monster of a wrestler that doesn't rely solely on his size to win. He's fast. He's strong. He's tough. And then there's the biggest part to it: he can actually WRESTLE. If Jarrett goes over Joe, even with a screwjob, it'll be obvious that TNA doesn't even know what it's doing. Joe isn't a Monty Brown, where the odd charisma and push are the entire basis of his heat. Joe gets heat because Joe is GOOD, and the fans know it. Even if he'd lost here and there in good matches, he'd still be looked at as a huge challenge to any and all opponents, simply because of how good of a wrestler he is. Yeah. I don't really watch TNA anymore because not only is the timeslot awful (some people actually have to get up to go to work in the morning, SpikeTV execs), but because I can't stand Jeff Jarrett, and I still see that he's a big part of the shows. Well, that...and there's no true direction for more than half of the company.

Slayer - God Hates Us All A one-track album, really. "Disciple" is the only song worth listening to more than once in a blue moon, with "Bloodline" and maybe "Payback" coming in at second and third respectively. Still better than that Diabolous bullshit. Hopefully Christ Illusions will be more like Divine Intervention and Seasons than this one was, since "Cult" sounds like it will be. Death - The Sound of Perseverance You know, I'm not that big of a Death fan, really. I picked this up after constant grating from my buddy Crawford over how I don't own any Death albums. A good listen, and technical as all hell, but really not my thing. I'm not too into the melodic death metal too much, no matter how technical it is, which definitely separates me from the crew I run with on a musical level since most of what they listen to is melodic death metal (and I'm stuck over here with my thrash and hardcore love). Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper Again, not a big fan of melodic death, but this album is worth getting if you're into metal at all. Alexi's guitarwork truly shines here, and it has what I feel is the best Bodom song to date - "Bodom After Midnight." Production is fabulous as it's not so overproduced it hurts and not underproduced to the point where you can't distinguish two notes from each other, and it's just worth a listen, basically.

Wrestlers get up in arms about being told to cut their hair because long hair not only takes a fucking long time to grow, but it's also still a symbol of rebellion. You don't see too many Wall Street execs with ponytails, do you? Not if they have a cock and two balls...and aren't shemales. I was pissed at myself when I cut my hair my junior year of high school after growing it for 4 1/2 years. It's a pride thing, really. It's the equivalent of writing a long story, a novel if you will, and then having somebody come in and tell you to get rid of everything but the first two chapters. It's bullshit, really. But yeah...I think one of them should cut their hair. Maybe Andy Douglas, and spike it or something. Stevens looks good with long hair, maybe trim it a bit and grow out the underneath to make it fuller. But why would management just go "well, fuck your push" because a wrestler doesn't want to cut their hair? IMO, when a wrestler wants to change their look or management wants their look to change, make it mean something. Angle wanted to shave his head. Hair vs. hair with Edge. Bischoff wanted Mysterio and Juvi to lose their masks. They lost matches where they needed to remove their masks. It's THAT simple.

They're nowhere near the quality of the actual ECW shirts. But, of these, the best is the white one with the bloody handprint. Nothing stupid on the back (at least nothing that's shown), and it's a wrestling shirt that isn't black.

The only hardasses in Canada are the motherfuckers from Detroit that moved North.

Proof that Scott Bakula is a Saint.

While we're talking tunings... My Explorer is tuned to Drop-C# (Drop-Db, whatever you wanna call it, since it's the same thing), and my Warlock is tuned to standard E. Might change that around so the Explorer is standard E and the Warlock is Drop-C#, but I'm not sure yet. I need to bust out my old P.O.S. K-Mart special acoustic, too. First guitar I owned, a huge piece of shit that never stayed in tune, but it's worth it to jam out when I'm camping this weekend with my girlfriend, her brother, and his unofficial girlfriend Sam.

4th year as of this past February. And I use to post at the Smarks board for a year before that, too.

Only album from this year that I've bought was Shadows Fall's Fallout From the War...and it's good. Not amazing, but pretty good. Not even a true album, just mostly b-sides and songs that were written on the road during the tour for War Within. I do have to say, though, that Darkest Hour's Undoing Ruin would've been my vote for this year's best heavy album...had it not come out last year. Looking forward to Slayer's release later this year since "Cult" is a pretty damn good tune that harkens back to Seasons.

1) Don't cry over anything unless it's worth crying over. It's not the end of the fucking world if your dad grounded you for the pot you smoked, so don't think of him as some evil entity just because you fucked up. 2) I'd tell myself to not be too trusting of people. I tended to do that a lot from elementary school through high school, and it got me a lot of friends that were just complete wastes of life. I should've been a little meaner, because then that would've weeded out the people I didn't want in my life and the people that I did. 3) We are tired of your abuse / Try to stop us, it's no use

Anthrax, the band that actually had a song titled that, was writing songs about political issues, history, Stephen King books, comic books and many other topics. All the while creating music that was just slightly heavier than your average glam rock band when Belladonna was singing. S.O.D. > Anthrax. At least S.O.D. wasn't fronted by a cocksmooching pissant like Joey Belladonna.

Yeah. I've yet to meet an ICP fan that understood that Shangri-Lah was meant to be Heaven.

Of the 4 shows I fronted TDR...one was lame (Roller Kingdom with a bunch of emokids), one was decent (the first TDR show), one was dull (Palladium, again with a bunch of emokids), and one we were the only band with a moshpit (12/23 in Vermont). ...but yeah. Trying to find a decent tuning for my new Warlock, and I've settle on either Eb or Drop-C#. I usually play in Drop-C# (Drop-D, down 1/2 step) anyway on my Explorer, but I think I'm mostly gonna use the Warlock to play Misfits and Slayer songs (which are mostly in Eb) and other similar-styles anyway.

Thrash albums tend to have a killer opener, mediocre/weak middle, and a bone-crushing end. What many say (and I agree) is the greatest thrash metal album ever, Reign in Blood, is all about the bookend songs (although the entire album is classic, and its songs are always favorites to true metalheads). I'd prolly agree with you on power metal, but we've already chatted and I've made my opinions on that made pretty clear. I do have to say, though, that Helloween having "Midnight Sun" close Better Than Raw was a wise choice. The first three songs ("Preliminary Prelude in Z," "Push," and "Falling Higher" in that order) are the best on the album, but I love "Midnight Sun."

They're probably happy that their fans are diehard, but at the same time disturbed at how the majority of their fanbase doesn't actually get it. They're a fucking joke, kids. THEY WEAR CLOWN MAKEUP. THEY OWN THEIR OWN WRESTLING PROMOTION. THEY OUTRIGHT SAY THEY'RE A JOKE ON THEIR ALBUMS. Jeez...I've never heard of any Gwar fans taking the whole act too seriously, have you?

I think that the Juggalos should just be, you know, sterilized so that they can't breed.

So ICP - devout Christians that flat-out TOLD their fanbase on The Wraith that they shouldn't be worshipped, and who always say in even pseudo-serious interviews that they're a joke act - fans are still fucking idiots. I get it. Makes the Boston Beatdown/FSU crew seem downright honorable. At least they only ganged up on people that were being dicks, more often than not.

Eh...the TNA match was basically the RoH match cut in half. The RoH match flowed a little better, but the TNA one is much easier to digest. As far as Douglas/Raven hair-v-hair...are you mental? Of the few matches they had involving one another during that trainwreck of a feud (though, to be fair, it didn't become a trainwreck until Dirty Dutch took over the booking) the only good one was the first. THAT was a fucking brawl. I need to find the date on it, because it just may have been TNA's best pure one-on-one brawl. Speaking of good brawls... Truth/Jarrett. I and II. I would say Destiny (Raven/Jarrett I for those that that don't know), but the ending totally killed the match for me. The first two Truth/Jarrett brawls (the debut of Russo was in the first one) were damned good, especially the second which had less stalling and more fighting. This was back when The Truth was just starting to lose his initial push (after a pair of some of the best NWA World title matches of the TNA era: vs. Lynn and vs. LowKi; the second Truth/Lynn match was for the X-Division title, mind you), so he was still something of a hot commodity (albeit cooling down). Easily two of my favorite brawls in TNA history. You know...come to think of it...how many NWA World title matches during the TNA era have been as good as the ones Truth was involved in? LowKi, Jerry Lynn, the pair with Jarrett...I can't think of too many other memorable NWA World title bouts that didn't involve Raven or AJ Styles (who I think may be the only one to out-do Truth in terms of OVERALL quality of World title bouts, but Truth's were better because they were more than big bumps and highspots). And I mean memorable for a GOOD reason.

Didn't get a Son of the Beast. Ended up getting a Warlock instead because it was $169.99, and I had a 20% off coupon for being a "frequent buyer" (even though the only things I've bought there in the last 3 years or so have been strings, picks, and a strap).