RIP Johnny Winter

Around this time yesterday, I came across the cover of Johnny Winter's 1973 Still Alive And Well album while browsing through some of my drafts for this blog, and I smiled thinking about good old Johnny and the fact that he had decided to call his album that way. Apparently, God was willing to prove once again that he does indeed have a really sick sense of humour, because, at the time I was reflecting on the album's title, that affirmation was no longer true.

Johnny Winter had died just a few hours earlier in his Swiss hotel room, only two days after playing his last show. At 70, he was still touring, and he went doing just that, like every musician should.

The cause of his death has not yet been revealed, so right now it's impossible to tell if it was just old age or if there were some other factors involved. He had struggled with substance abuse (like pretty much everyone) in the past, in the form of alcohol and prescription drugs - the Bluesman's Cocktail. Even that he had in common with Jerry Cantrell, and knowing it fascinates me and terrifies me at the same time.

It's hard to find the right words to say when somebody dies, expecially when you have known them for so little time. You have just discovered their existence and, all of a sudden, you have to get used to them not being around anymore. It makes everything seem a twisted, calculated joke of fortune; it leaves you feeling a hollow sadness you don't quite know what to do with.

So you just keep going, trying to honor their existence by making the best of your own.

And, at least, you can find some comfort in the idea that they did that too.

70 years might not be the longest life, but it's quite a lot if you see it from the perspective of Johnny's blues buddy Jimi Hendrix... and he dedicated all of it to the thing he loved most. He started playing in a band with his brother when he was just 10 years old; he made his first record at 15, in a time when 15-year-old musicians didn't necessarily get raped and murdered by the music industry, and went on to release about 20 studio albums... which is not too bad.

Johnny Winter was a legend; a living relic from the golden age of rock music, and, every time a musician of his size dies, a piece of that era is gone forever. He left a hole nobody else can fill, and, as hard as you try to prevent the depressing thoughts from taking over, you can't stop yourself from feeling like real musicians are an endangered species, bound to disappear after the last exemplars are gone.

And then is when you start feeling depressed as fuck... again.

 I feel so alone

Gonna end up a big old pile of them bones

Jerry Cantrell said it all.

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Rest in peace, Johnny Winter. You've earned it.

Now it's time for us to try to keep your spirit alive.

Midnight Sunset

Joensuu, Finland. July 13, 2014.

See that thing in the background?

That's right - it's a sunset. There's nothing special about it, if you overlook the date and location of this picture.

But we don't overlook anything in here.

So, when do you get to see a sunset in Finland at this time of the year? Somewhere around 12.15 am, probably - right after you've finished your 75 minute headlining set at Ilosaari Rock festival.

If you excuse me, I'm gonna cuddle up in bed and cry.

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Guess someone's still bitter about the 40 minute set Sabbath squeezed their 'special guests' into? Well, you're guessing it right. 

...or you would, if I had taken the time to sit and write down about my adventures in Essen - which I still haven't done, mostly because I'm a lazy piece of shit.

But here's one little spoiler I just gave you.

The European summer festival tour is almost (if not already) over for Alice, and, after another Canadian leg they have left, touring for this album should be over as well. It seems like I won't be able to catch them at a proper show on this tour, after all (guess it's too late for a rushed-up trip to Canada? LMAO), so the only thing I've got left is hoping that the next album they release will be every bit just as awesome as Dinosaurs (which is rather probable)... and that they'll still play Phantom Limb, Hollow, Stone and Voices on their next tour (which is not so probable).

It can't take more than two or three years anyway (don't think they'll be staying off the road all that time, though - they'll probably keep coming back for the festival season, like all bands do)... not a big deal LOL

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Anyway, Essen was still worth the trip - I won't deny that.

In a curious plot twist of fortune, I happened to stumble upon this on my Facebook timeline precisely this morning:

'Danke Schön Essen'

'Danke schön Essen'... how sweet is that?

It totally melted my heart away, and even made me forget about my Sabbath-related bitterness... for a couple of minutes.

I know it's obviously not the actual band doing it, but it's still a nice gesture in their name, and I really appreciate that :)

It's also nice to see that the arena looked much less empty from stage than it did from where I was sitting - takes one demoralizing factor off LOL

Unfortunately, my section got cropped off the picture. If it hadn't, you'd probably be seeing my huge red cowboy hat from here LMAO

You can still see the cheerful weather, though... :'D

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Thank you, guys.

I really hope to see you again sometime... in more favourable circumstances :)

Vinyl Dreams, Endless Questions

I had one of my strange awakenings today. 

I woke up around 9.30 and, for a while, I somehow didn't feel the need to fall asleep again. Instinctively, I reached for my phone, just to see what the outside world had to offer.

After discovering that a Japanese S&M clothing store I followed on Twitter a couple of days ago (don't ask) had decided to follow me back for whatever reason (LOL), I went on to chek out my Instagram account. To my surprise, somebody had liked the picture I took of my then brand new copy of The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here - that's right: the one with the Baby Jesus I posted on this same blog about a million years ago.

Not a million years, actually, but 19 weeks: the exact amount of time that has passed since this CD first landed in my hands. Ironically and unknowingly, the stranger had chosen a very special day to perform his virtual interaction, and I'm glad he did, because if it wasn't for him, I would have definitely missed the occasion. It's been exactly five months since the day I first sat down and listened to this very album; five months since I realized I had become a fan of Alice, and my love for the band has only grown exponentially during this time.

It's hard to believe how long and how short these five months feel. In some ways, it still seems like it all happened just yesterday. But then, when I look back at all the things I've learnt and all the (countless) hours I've spent listening to their records and realize I've only been a fan of this band for five fucking months, all I can say is: 'Jesus Christ!' LOL

Alice is the first IMPORTANT band I've ever discovered through streaming, and I guess that explains some of it. Never before had I acquired such a deep knowledge of a band's body of work in so little time. With all the other bands, it took so much longer to complete the picture... You only got to see one piece of the puzzle, one record at a time, till you finally had all of them and could fill the gaps. There was fun in that, I won't deny it. But what happened with Alice (mostly thanks to the impossibility of playing un-shuffled albums on Spotify mobile LOL) was that I had a clear vision of the big picture almost since day one. I feel like I've known all these records for a lifetime now, which is still mindblowing; I can talk to people who have been fans of this band for years without feeling retarded, and they never even suspect how much of a newbie I am LOL

I guess this just proves what an awesome tool streaming can be. If only teenagers used it to expand their non-existent musical culture instead of just doing whatever the fuck they do with it... oh man.

But they don't even have a reason to do that, because music isn't worth shit today, thanks to twenty-five years of consolidation and 'container over content' politics.

In this apocalyptic context, I obviously had to find out who had unearthed my ancient picture, and why.

The like came from an account named metalvinyls. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to belong to a vinyl collector with a predilection for heavy metal records, whose avatar I happened to recognize as the cover of Daniel Buhszpan's The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal - a book I have proudly read from A to Z B)

Not his avatar, but actually my copy of the book ;)

The reason he had stumbled across my picture became clear as soon as I saw his last two pictures, introduced by the following (and curious) caption:

"So this picture is part one of two awesome picture disks I got today at HMV. This is of course from Alice in Chains's album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Now I know they aren't exactly metal. But rock/hard rock non the less and I couldn't pass up showing off these records! #aliceinchains #thedevilputdinosaurshere #picturedisk #colouredvinyl #vinyl #vinyljunkie #part1 #nowspinning #rock #hardrock"

Photo: metalvinyls

"I know they aren't exactly metal". This sentence sounded really funny to me, and it led me to ask my first trascendental question of the day: why is Alice In Chains generaly labeled as a 'hard rock' band while Black Sabbath is universally aknowledged as a 'heavy metal' band? 

Don't get me wrong - I don't have much appretiation for the 'heavy metal' tag. In fact, I'm glad Alice don't have to deal with it because I know, from my long experience as a Metallica fan, how limitating it can be, but it just makes no sense to me that two bands as essentially similar as Alice and Sabbath happen to be separated by this Berlin Wall of genres.

I first noticed this when I came across LoudWire's '10 Best Rock Albums of 2013' list. I was very pleased to see Dinosaurs on the top spot (where it belongs), but I was equally surprised that they had apparently overlooked Black Sabbath's 13. Had they forgotten about its existence, or did they just consider it was so bad it didn't even deserve to make the top 10? LOL

But of course, they hadn't forgotten about Black Sabbath - how could they? It turned out 13 was on number 5, after all... of their '10 Best Metal Albums of 2013' list, squeezed between Dream Theater and Deafheaven (whothefuck???), just a few spots away from Motörhead (don't think Lemmy would approve being in the 'metal' list either *cough*). 

I found that so mindblowingly absurd it hadn't even occurred to me that those two albums belonged in two different lists. Hollow and Phantom Limb are actually heavier than anything on 13; Alice's Dirt abum is more aggressive than any Sabbath record... But they're still not a metal band. And Sabbath are.

Because... yeah.

Photo: metalvinyls

I didn't, however, let that question distract me from what I was seeing: Dinosaurs on picture disc... 'like what the fuck is that?' It took a few seconds for my drowsy brain to figure out it was (obviously) the limited edition picture disc vinyl release of the Dinosaurs album. 

It comes in two parts because it's so fucking massive you can't just squeeze it into a single disc. The album is split in FOUR sides, with three tracks on each... which obviously doubles its price. If they had to do this with Dinosaurs, I wonder how they would have handled the vinyl release of Jerry Cantrell's 2 hour 20 minute-long (!) Degradation Trip Volumes 1&2. Would it come in some sort of weird vinyl box set or something? Unfortunately for vinyl die-hards (or fortunately for their pockets), it seems it never got a vinyl release, so I guess we'll never know LOL

But that's not the point.

As I kept looking at these pictures, it started to dawn on me just how solid vinyl records really look. It's not like I didn't know it; I just had forgotten the feeling. At those early hours of the morning, however, the idea suddenly seemed so tempting...

I browsed through his gallery for a while, looking at what else he had. There wasn't much I could relate to musically, but I couldn't keep myself from appreciating his love for collecting only the flashiest picture discs known to mankind... Tons of beautiful records from bands I couldn't care less about. I wasn't that impressed by the different albums' cover art as I was by the thousands of weird things you can do with the disc surface. And man, I have to admit the idea was making me drool.

And the more I thought about it, the more I started to enjoy the idea of holding a BIG vinyl record in your hands, looking at the BIG cover art, touching its surface and feeling the grooves...

I have been a notable vinyl skeptic for a while, especially since the format became trendy again in the last few years, mostly because I saw it as a hipster thing, and as an industy trap to sell us the same records AGAIN at a much more expensive price, after making sure we tossed our pre-CD vinyl collection into the trashbin, discarded as obsolete.I still believe that, because most of it is true, but I also know that, being the rock and roll dinosaur I am, it's just a question of time before I fall in the arms of the ancient format.

Being a kid raised in the age of CD and far away from the family vinyl collection I had to leave behind in Siberia, I never really got to have a first-hand vinyl experience, and, to a certain degree, that's something I miss.

The audio quality of LPs is universally aknowleged to be notably better than that of CDs. Like my friend Ducky (who is an avid vinyl collector herself) pointed out in a post she wrote regarding her vinyl collecting hobby, LPs have an incomparably wider frequency range, which makes the difference between the two formats something you experience with your body rather than something you can discern by hearing. I can't confirm it due to my aforementioned lack of first-hand experience, but I'm pretty sure it's true.

...Just like I'm pretty sure that all the glorious records from the 70s, like Queen II (especially Queen II) or the Ozzy era Black Sabbath albums, to name just very few, never really recovered from the conversion to CD, no matter how many remasters they've been through. Vinyl is probably the only legitimate way of listening to those records, and that's something I have to live with.

 

Queen II in beautiful vinyl

And I'm gonna live with it for quite a while still, because there are way too many things pushing me away from vinyl collecting right now.

First of all, vinyl players are expensive as fuck.

Second: both the player and the records need space, and I mean they require TONS of space I totally don't have. I already have trouble organizing my CDs, so I can't even imagine what it would be like to deal with HUGE vinyl records.

Third: LPs cost three to six times as much as CDs (I'm not counting overpriced new CD releases), and that's when they're not diabolic double LPs like Dinosaurs LOL

Collecting vinyl is such a bottomless money pit I don't even want to think about it until I have my own stable (and abundant) source of income.

Everyone is entitled to a 'rich bastard' hobbie. I guess collcting vinyl is gonna be mine. But I still have to be a rich bastard first.Until then, the only vinyls in my collection will be my decorative exemplar of Hotel California and a tiny bunch of Queen singles I inherited.

Amazing Hotel California vinyl release. Not mine, but a similar one.

Another thing that makes me cautious about vinyl collecting is that it really is a collector's affair. When you're a vinyl collector (and you only buy vinyl when you're a vinyl collector these days), you don't just walk in the store and buy whatever you find; you're supposed to know exactly what you want to buy, because there are so many different versions of everything, and limited editions and all sorts of weird shit to drive you crazy and suck the money out of your hands like a goddamn vacuum cleaner. I have to admit that perspective makes me pretty scared. But then again, I guess that when you're a rich bastard you have the time to dig deep into your rich bastard hobbie, and you're not afraid of how much it's gonna cost, so I guess I'll just worry about that later.

The worst thing about developing an interest in vinyl records, however, is having to deal the those bitchy little people known as 'audiophiles' a.k.a. the purists of sound mixing.

You know I'm a huge lover of great music, and I love writing and talking about it (as you can see LOL), but hearing audiophiles speak just makes me want to chew my own head off. Because being an audiophile is not about being a 'lover' of recorded sound; being an audiophile actually means you can NEVER enjoy ANYTHING that's recorded, because nothing is ever good enough for your exquisite hearing.

While looking for some extra information on the Dinosaurs picture disc, I accidentally came across this review, which suddenly reminded me why I should NEVER read reviews of things I like LOL

 

First of all, the guy says some things about Alice that are extremely inaccurate.

He says Black Gives Way To Blue was a poppier album than Dinosaurs, which just makes me wonder if he accidentally swapped the albums without knowing. He says Dinosaurs is 'a return to the bleak and the sorrowful' as opposed to the 'happy' tunes on Black Gives Way To Blue. REALLY, BRO? Dinosaurs features a record number of huge life-affirming anthems that don't have a single 'bleak' or 'sorrowful' thing about them; in fact, no other Alice album has SUCH an amount of happy tunes, and definitely NOT Black Gives Way To Blue. 

 

He lists Stone, Choke and Scalpel as 'downer songs' along with Hollow, which also proves he has a rather curious perspective on life. Stone is a heavy tune, sure as Hell, but I wouldn't refer to it as 'downer', especially if Hollow is your most immediate reference of what a 'downer' song is. Choke is an epic mid-tempo Dire Straits-friendly ballad and Scalpel is a pretty happy country song that has nothing dark about it, aside from the title. Seriously: what the fuck was this guy listening to?

He also says that the band hasn't changed its sound since 1992, which would make me violently spit my drink out on his face... if only I had a drink.

But then my favourite part comes: loudness war and the never-ending audiophile rant.

Audio compression/loudness war is a subject that has fascinated me for years, because of how concerned all the purists of sound mixing seem to be about it. Obviously, the guy complains about Dinosaurs being as hyper-compressed as every other modern record, which is not entirely untrue. But the thing about audiophiles and loudness war is that, even if my brain knows they are surely right, my biker fist refuses to let them win.

I might start buying into their anti-loudness war campaing the day I finally hear a coherent explanation of why all the producers and sound engineers in the world seem to be conspiring to systematically over-compress every record that hits the shelves, but they all keep failing to provide me with one. The author of this review (ironically?) puts it down to the fact that mixers and producers are 'stupid, bad people', but that's not a big deal of a convincing argument (even if it's true that most producers are, indeed, BAD people).

But really: what's the point of 'loudness war'? 

Highly compressed records are supposed to be notably louder than not-so-compressed records... and yet I need to kick the volume of my players really high when I'm listening to Dinosaurs or Black Gives Way To Blue, because they don't really sound that loud.

Loudness war is also supposed to give songs some sort of 'advantage' on radio stations, but I haven't noticed that either. In fact, the mix of Hollow that reached the waves on local music TV over here was so quiet it was barely inaudible, so I can't really see it. Plus, when you pick Hollow as the first single from your new album, I don't think radio airplay is a priority. It's not like somebody was hoping it would land a spot between Avicii and Calvin Harris on top 40 radio, right? LOL

Making hyper-comopressed records is not cheaper and I don't think it's easier either. I don't see how it can boost record sales, but it can obviously push audiophiles away from buying them, so I really don't see what kind of secret benefit lies in there for the music industry.

The only (über-twisted) theory that kind of makes sense is that Ted Jensen (the guy who single-handedly masters every record in the planet) is deliberately fucking up the audio quality of CDs in order to force the audiophiles to buy vinyl, since they seem to be the only ones who care. And then, he fucks up vinyl records too, in order to make them buy better vinyl. Because that's another thing I've learnt from this review:

 

When you're used to listening to CDs, you assume that anything that comes on a vinyl has to sound good. Turns out you're wrong, because, apparently, even in the world of LPs there are ways mean sound engineers can fuck things up. Judging from what this guy says, picture discs sound awful too, so you can't even have beautifully-looking vinyls if you want to enjoy the REAL sound. Jesus Christ.

The only thing I don't understand is why he decided to buy the picture disc in the first place, if he already knew it would sound like shit.

 

He also complains about the quality of the red plastic sleeve and pretty much everything else he could possible complain about.

 

For a few seconds, he even made me feel guilty for feeling attracted to the picture discs in the first place, but then I just looked at myself and said: 'Fuck you!'

I think the problem about audiophiles is that they listen to the sound so much they forget to listen to the music. And, even if I can partly understand their concern for how records sound, their obsession of 'GOOD SOUND' borderlines on OCD.

Would I like to have a clearer mix of Dinosaurs? Sure.

Does that prevent me from enjoying the record? Nope.

But, given how inaccurate our critic is in all the musical aspects, I guess it does stop him from hearing what's really there. And that's a real problem.

So, kids, if you start becoming too obsessed with sound, just kick the volume up till you're too fucking deaf to care about your audio-shit.

You'll live happier.

 

 

And now, if you excuse me, I'm off to bed, to dream of evil dinosaurs and shitty-sounding picture discs.

Guess I'll never be one of them audiophiles ;)

The Guitar Man

I didn't know much (=anything) about Johnny Winter until I saw him on the cover of this Japanese guitar magazine (don't ask), but I just couldn't help noticing that the man looks a huge lot like a zef version of Jerry Cantrell O.o

Ever wondered what would happen if Jerry got a little bit Ninja-ed? Or should I say a little Kid-Rock-ed - which is probably the closest Americans can get to zef?

...Or it was, until Rob Zombie shot this music video:

[Don't miss the ever-flawless John 5 doing his thing over there, along with his good old mate drummer Ginger Fish. As you can see, one half of Rob Zombie's current band actually consists of former Marilyn Manson members, which is funny as Hell LOL]

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That's Jerry over there, in case you have any doubts LOL

The similarity between the two turns even scarier when you find out that Johnny looked EVEN more like Jerry when he was younger (he was already in his 40s when the cover shot was taken)...

What. The. Fuck.

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This similarity, however, might not be entirely casual...

Partially quoting his Wikipedia article (which, as we all know, is the universal source of all truth LOL), Johnny Winter is "an American blues musician" born in the über-Southern town of Beaumont, Texas in 1944. That's actually not too far away from the Southern Oklahoma area where Jerry's father was raised and presumably born. Of course, this could be as much of a bullshit claim as saying that all the Russians look alike because they come from the fucking Russia, but I think it's pretty reasonable to guess that Winter (who's actually old enough to be Jerry's father LOL) and Cantrell might have been swimming in the same genetic pool without showering afterwards. Of course, Jerry's Southern genes are dilluded with a fair amount of Northern input... which probably explains why he's not zef enough to be zef LOL

...that said with all due respect to Southern people in general, and to Johnny Winter and Jerry Cantrell Sr. in particular.

In fact, Johnny Winter sounds really cool, based on what I've heard. He has a nice broken voice, and he's pretty vicious for a blues player, which definitely puts him in the Cantrell league... because that's exactly what Jerry is: a genuine Southern musician wonderfully swept by the Seattle grunge wave.

Something good had to come out of that, didn't it? ;)

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I'll end this Southern-flavoured post with a picture of Johnny Winter jamming with (Seattle-born) Jimi Hendrix... because that's the type of stuff people did in the 1960s.

Doesn't look that different from Jerry and Will playing together, heh? ;)

Twenty-two years younger, rocking just as hard.

Unfortunately, there is nobody left to play with at the other end of the next twenty-two year gap.

Fuck my generation.

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But don't worry, ladies and gentlemen... 

The South will rise again.

I swear to God it will.

Your Decision

Time to change has come and gone
Watched your fears become your God
It's your decision
It's your decision

Overwhelmed, you chose to run
Apathetic to the stunned
It's your decision
It's your decision

You feed the fire that burned us all
When you lie
To feel the pain that spurs you on
Black inside

No one plans to take the path that brings you lower
And here you stand before us all and say it's over
It's over

It might seem an afterthought
Yes, it hurts to you know you're bought
It's your decision
It's your decision

You feed the fire that burned us all
When you lie
To feel the pain that spurs you on
Black inside

It's your decision
It's your decision

No one plans to take the path that brings you lower
And here you stand before us all and say it's over
It's over

It's over

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JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

What else can you say when this is happening?

Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall... 'a lot of water under that bridge', as DuVall once said. He very well knows what he was talking about.

Magic.

Just as simple as that.

PS. Pay attention at how Jerry can't keep from laughing after Will goes all "yeeeeaah" on 3.50. Cutest thing ever? Probably.

Dave's Addiction (Trip to the Heart of LA)

Just prior to heading off on the World Violation Tour Dave Gahan was holed up for a day in a luxurious suite at the Kensington Hilton International, to face a long line of European Journalists.

"I'm a family man now," Gahan told Melody Maker's Jon Wilde. "I like to go back home and be with my wife and little boy, going about everyday thinkgs like everyoine else. That may seem pretty boring, but a lot of people have this idea that pop stars lead this life of Riley where they're out on the razz every night - that just ain't the fucking case!"

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Fame evidently had its bonuses, but for the 29-year-old Gahan, a married father, it was weighthing heavily on his shoulders. By the time the tour ended, he had changed from the home-loving individual (as he'd described himself) to one who had walked away from his wife and child in search of a different life, effectively mirroring his own father's destructive behaviour, some 25 painful years later.

"Moving away opens your mind," he told Melody Maker's Jennifer Nine. "I needed to get out. I felt trapped by everything that was around me. The last tour was great, we had a lot of success and Violator was huge around the world - and I should have been on top of the world, and I wasn't. I had everything I could possibly want, but I was really lost. I didn't even feel like I knew myself anymore. And I felt like shit, 'cos I constantly cheated on my wife, and went back home and lied, and my soul needed cleansing. I had to figure out why."

It wasn't only his soul that needed cleansing. "After the tour ended, I spent a few months in London and that's where my habit got completely out of hand," Gahan told Q's Phil Sutcliffe in 1999.

"I just packed my bag and split; went off and rented a place in Los Angeles," he confessed to Nine. "During the Violator tour I split with my wife. My next year was really spent doing a lot of soul-searching and trying to find out what had gone wrong with my life, and thinking, to be quite honest, about whether I wanted to come back and do the whole thing - records, tours, fame, Depeche Mode - again. Just tearing myself away from everything that I had really grown up with and known, including my wife at the time, and my young son, Jack, as well... all that stuff was quite painful to me."

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Having positioned himself over 5,000 miles away from his five-year-old son and heir, Dave cemented the move by taking up with the vivacious Teresa Conroy who, according to the Internet Movie Database, had appered in several hardcore pornographic films under the name of 'Terri' before accompanying the band across America as Press Liasison officer on the 1988 nd 1990 treks. 

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Way out west, Dave Gahan got swept in the 'American dream': a large house in the Hollywood hills; the quintessential 'dream machine' - a powerful Harley-Davidson motorcycle... the whole enchilada. "It definitely was more comfortable for me in Los Angeles," he stated. "I fell quikly into that lifestyle, and, for a while, it was great fun."

Free to lead what he later termed as a "very selfish lifestyle", Gahan partied harder than ever; partly thanks to new partner Teresa Conroy's music biz connections, he was welcomed with open arms into LA's established rock fraternity, a select group for whom drug taking, if not necessarily heroin addiction, was almost de rigueur - a dangerous place for a wealthy individual in a highly strung emortional state to inhabit.

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In April 1992, following what was reported by the British tabloid press as being a "messy, year-long divorce", Gahan finally tied the knot with Teresa Conroy. Like Gahan, Conroy was also a heroin user, someone he later termed as being "... a partner I could play with, in all sorts of ways, without being judged, because she was joining in. In fact, she didn't make me take heroin; she gave me the opportunity to try it again. We made a pact early on that I'd never use intravenously; but, of course, being a junkie and a liar, it didn't take long."

The nuptials took place in the somewhat tawdry surroundings of the Graceland Chapel at 619 Las Vegas Boulevard, South Las Vegas, with an obligatory Elvis Presley impersonator acting as guest of honour.

"Of course, everything was plastic - false," Dave confirmed to Jennifer Nine. "They wouldn't even light the candles in the chapel, 'cos they were just there for the show."

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"My wife works in the music business," Gahan told Melody Maker's Jennifer Nine. "At the beginning of Depeche Mode's year off, she was out working for the Lollapalooza tour, the first one with Jane's Addiction. I went out on the tour kind of as a fan, just hanging out. It was different just walking around in the crowd, really not being bothered by the fans at all. I noticed the audience was the same as the one we have, or The Cure - or a lot of other bands, for that matter. Americans really see it all as just new, alternative music. And Jane's Addiction were just the most incredible thing I'd seen in a long while. Sometimes they were really shit, and sometimes they were just so mountainous and fantastic."

In fact, so mountainous and fantastic that Gahan "...spent the year trying to find the sort of music I wanted to be involved with. There was so much really good music coming out of the States at the time, much more so than where it usually copmes from - Europe or London. It felt that what was happening back home - all that Techno stuff - was really boring."

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Martin Gore had barely heard from or seen his errant bandmate since the conclusion of the World Violation Tour.

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"And then when he came back he was Jesus! He was tattooed from head to toe; he was skinny - all the puppy fat had gone; he was incredibly intense."

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When Gahan's bandmates finally laid eyes on their long-haired, goateed, tattoo-covered singer - looking (and sounding) every bit like the American grunge star he so desperately wanted to be, the shock finally sank in.

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"He looked like he'd been living in LA for a year," Alan Wilder pithily summed up.

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I

It's so funny for me right now to imagine Dave Gahan falling in love with Jane's Addiction I can't even put it down in words.

I saw Jane's Addiction playing at Rock In Rio in 2010 (on TV, not in the flesh), and they really sucked LOL Perry Farrell looked like a crazy old lady, gripping onto a bottle of wine, with his arms wrapped tightly around what looked like a pair of wasted middle-aged strippers. His vocals were beyond unacceptable, and the whole band sounded like a real mess. I was quite surprised to discover that this band had had some sort of 'cult status' back in the day LOL

But, of course, I've never seen them perform in their glory days, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Given my current emotional state, I can totally imagine Dave Gahan feeling as mindblown by Jane's Addiction as I am by Alice In Chains, and, despite the fact that both bands are light years away in terms of musicianship, I can't help feeling some sort of 'grunge solidarity' with him.

I'm very focussed on that specific period of music history right now, and, as much as it might surprise you, this has actually nothing to do with my newly-discovered love for Alice. In fact, I've been having a thing for grunge music for the last two years, despite the fact that there was no particular grunge band I was really a fan of. It all probably started because Nirvana and their depressing vibes really connected with the way I was feeling back in 2011. Before I knew it, I was only writing doom metal and dark acoustic stuff... very much (extremely much LOL) in the spirit of AIC - only back then I had no idea the band existed e___e'

The reason I have such a fascination for the whole grunge movement, however, is because it happened to be the last step in the evolution of rock music, right before it got dismembered and caged by the consolidated industry. The big explosion of grunge (especially Nirvana) was probably the first ever major industry-driven movement (you just have to take a look at all the hype surrounding Nevermind... and at the fact that all the legendary grunge/alternative bands happen to have an album titled 'MTV Unplugged'), but its origins were genuine, and so was the music. It was probably the last ever music current to originate from a real local cultural scene.

Dave's words can give you a very accurate idea of just how different things were back then...

Nowadays, local scenes are a memory from the past. The organic ladder to success has been destroyed, just like the concept of success itself. Bands performers can no longer play their way to the top, like KISS, AC/DC or Motörhead did back in the day; they literaly go from being nobody to becoming A-list celebrities - often without even having one single album out (see Iggy Azalea) -, and when their hype-driven popularity wears off (it never takes more than 18 months), they are left suspended in the strange limbo of the precoucious has-beens. They feed them with hormones like they do with chicken, artificially inflating them into the top, and, by doing so, they turn the top - their top - into a place real musicians don't want (or shouldn't want) to be in. But don't worry - even if they wanted to, they still wouldn't be allowed.

Cultural trends are no longer born in the underground... or at all. In a scenario of cultural monopoly consolidation like the one we're facing, just a tiny handful of creatives has to provide contents for ALL the cultural industries (and, believe me - they don't have the biggest brains LOL). You just have to see the Billboard Hot 100 or the (identical) awful shit most fashion brands are putting out to understand how it works. For the first time since the end of WW2, there is absolutely no youth culture. No identity for the kids of this generation (and the previous one), aside from fucking smartphones and the uni-reality of the social networks.

How fucked up is that?

II

Dave's story comes to me in a moment when my relationship with the US has experienced yet another twist in its long and complicated history.

For the last couple of years, I've grown used to see LA (and the whole United States by extension) as a gigantic shithole where people are sent to die, stripped off their basic human dignity, prostituted and abused in every possible way. Just reading the name of that city makes me shiver with horror and disgust, and you can't blame me for it. After my two-year experience of living in LA through the Kaulitz twins, I had way too many things to be horrified and disgusted about. I was so angry at the city (and everyone in it) for everything it had done to them; I was so angry at America for allowing it to happen - for causing it to happen with its goddamn cultural hegemony politics; I was so angry at the world... for everything. And man, I swear to God I still am.

I used to fantasize with that horrifying place being swept from the face of Earth; engulfed in a gigantic fireball; sunken in lava. And I did it with no regrets whatsoever.

Now, however, life has just added a few layers of complexity to my scheme of things.

And yes, this time I am indeed talking about Alice In Chains.

They are not the first people I respect who happen to live in the nightmare city (you could find about 100 people worth saving living over there, if you tried really hard), but, for some reason, their music is making it harder for me to just hate it the way I used to (don't worry, I won't stop hating LA any time soon - I don't even think that's physically possible for me). It's not making me love it either (God forbid!); it just reminds me that good and evil are never as neatly parted as religion tries to sell us.

How should you judge, when it's (almost?) impossible to do it all completely right, and yet there are almost infinite ways of doing it all completely wrong?

Right and wrong are always a percentage. And it keeps on recalculating every day.

For Dave, LA was a place of reinvention and self-discovery; a refuge where he could feel free from all the things that were repressing him in his home country. It was also the backdrop to his personal degradation; the witness (and accomplice) to some of the worst and more shameful moments of his life. Was it good or bad? And was the city to blame? Or was he just running away from himself all the time, wherever he was?

And did the Kaulitz twins ever experience any relief for being away from a home country that still seems to hate them more than (almost) anyone on this Earth deserves? Did they ever feel liberated, if only for a second, for being able to walk completely unrecognized among the regular people of Los Angeles, like Dave said? Or did it horrify them because, unlike him, they knew their hiatus was going to be permanent; because, unlike Gahan, they never chose to take a break in the first place, but rather were shot off the rails before they'd had time to reach a tiny part of their potential and transferred to that Hell of a city to be dismanteled in the cruel slaughter machine of the celebrity business? Or perhaps they weren't even allowed to walk outside without the supervision of their creepy handlers? And how do they feel about it all now, from the depth of their German bunker?

Imprisoned and enslaved at home; imprisoned or enslaved abroad. Is there that much difference?

About Jerry Cantrell... I don't know him well enough to weight on his twelve year LA experience. I will just assume that nothing of what might have happened to him down there could be worse than the personal Hell he left in Seattle. Perhaps LA doesn't hurt you so bad when you're American. Perhaps it just depends on the person.

And yet it feels so strange for me to realize that a work of absolute perfection like Dinosaurs was entirely recorded in one of the many rooms where TH were mercilessly raped by a gang of unscrupulous producers. It feels so strange to imagine that, for two years, they shared the same city; they walked the same streets, drove down the same roads, ate at the same restaurants, looked at the same sunsets, shielded their eyes from the same light... Perhaps they crossed paths at some point, without knowing who the other was; roaming the steets aimlessly, taking pictures for a stupid phone app, while their counterparts were writing and recording one of the most awesome albums in recent rock history.

Was it good or bad?

And would I hate the city so much if I hadn't experienced what it feels like to be caught under its wheels? I probably would... or perhaps not so much. Or perhaps I'd be caught underneath them myself if those German kids hadn't showed me each and every one of the evils of this industry with their sad and terrifying history.

Was it good or bad?

...

Don't answer. This is a fucking koan.

III

It's sort of puzzling for me to learn that Dave's legendary Jesus Christ look (which happens to be my favourite Dave Gahan look of all time) was a product of LA. It's so obvious now I know it that I have a hard time understanding how had I never realized before.

Facial hair grows faster and thicker in LA; the spirit grows weary as days go by; the skin dries and wrinkles under the merciless sun; the body shifts shape in unexpected ways; ink flows endlessly through the needles, piercing the flesh over and over, in a vain attempt to regain control.

People come back from LA looking like they've been in outer space, because the human body ages faster there due to the extreme conditions.

Life in LA doesn't differ so much from life in prison.

Or, at least, it didn't for us.

What percentage does that make?

*    *    *

He came back from LA looking like Jesus Christ...

...because he too died to save us all.

HOLLOW

At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm obsessed with Alice In Chains.

Surprised? You should be. I am as well.

I never expected this to happen... but the fact is I've been compulsively listening to them since last Thursday, when I first decided to check out their 2013 album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here - which you might or might not remember for being home to the über-doom-metal lead single Hollow.

Hollow was, in fact, my very first point of contact with the band. I watched the music video when it first came out, following Vevo's recommendation. I had no real reason to succumb to the dictatorship of targeting, but I decided to give it a try, just because I'm always curious to see what modern rock bands are up to. Of course, at that point, I didn't know that Alice In Chains are nowhere near as young as I expected them to be. They are, in fact, almost the age of Metallica (a.k.a. around the age of Marilyn Manson), which probably explains something.

And what happened with Hollow was the same that happened the first time I heard/saw most of the stuff I ended up loving: I didn't like it. I can't say I didn't like it at all - I just dismissed it as some other average prog-metal song in the spirit of Dream Theater or Porcupine Tree... Nothing to be especially impressed about.

Then, there was the issue with the music video. I can't say it's a bad music video, because it's not. In fact, it lives up to the spirit of the song quite well. But it's definitely not the most enjoyable music video to watch. Actually, I found it pretty disturbing (I guess a music video for a song like this IS supposed to  be disturbing LOL). It gave me the same space-claustrophobia I experienced while watching Sunshine back in 2008 (a movie I don't really wish to see again - or perhaps I do now, just because of this song? LOL), and that wasn't a funny association.

But with disgust comes the fascination (or at least sometimes it does), and, good or bad, it was undeniable that their song and video had made a certain impression on me.

A few weeks later, however, I found myself extremely surprised to discover that that strange creepy space thing for prog-metal snobs had managed to get airplay on our local music TV - the one that only plays heavy bands like Metallica when they are promoting Through The Never and AC/DC when they are the soundtrack to Iron Man. My first thoughts were, of course: "WTF?! These guys are getting airplay with the least radio-friendly song of all time?! Somebody must be investing some major money in this thing... And I can't even understand why." I still have no clue of what kind of dark magic was involved in this unexplainable programation choice, but I guess I'll find out, eventually.

My impressions on the song and the video, however, didn't change much since my first Vevo experience. Hearing the music on shitty TV speakers and at moderate volume didn' t help much either... but more on that later.

Eventually, the promo cycle ran its course, Hollow flew off the playlist, and I never thought about it again.

That was until Spotify decided that my music choices were compatible with Alice In Chains' newest album (Targeting! There you are again!) and suggested it to me. I have to admit that the perspective of getting to hear that disturbing song again was strangely attractive, so I hit play.

And there it was, at the head of the tracklist, just as fucking creepy as I remembered it. And there was something cool about it... even though I wouldn't admit it LOL

I sat through a few of the songs that followed... and once again I was unimpressed.

But Spotify kept on insisting, and it creeps me out to admit that, for once, they got it totally right. But, hey, after suggesting me to listen to Adam Lambert and Kansas for months, it was about time for them to get SOMETHING right, wasn't it?

The thing is I finally decided to do things right and solve my issues with Alice In Chains once and for all: grab my headphones and my evaluation notebook and listen to the whole record FOR REAL.

And man, that was one really wise decision to make.

The idea of listening to Hollow with my headphones on was exciting and scary at the same time. 

I only had a few seconds of white noise to prepare before the doomiest riff of all time (with permission of Black Sabbath's self-titled song, of course) stormed in. And, man, was it heavy.

The heaviness of the sound blew me away quite literally. That crystaline production, THAT guitar sound. Holy Jesus Christ.

I didn't feel 'that' thrilled about the strangely ghostly harmonized vocals at first (even though I really love them now LOL), but the overall quality of the production was undeniable since minute zero.

THAT SOUND.

And those lyrics:

Hollow as a mountain

All tunneled and drilled bellow...

The power of that image alone made me shiver. Probably because I had a morbid fascination for tunnels and quarries back when I was a little kid. All the violence involved in the process of making them really creeped me out. Of ourse, I also felt intimidated by the hostility of the mountains themselves, so we can say it's all a pretty long story LOL (yup, I had tons of strange phobias when I was a kid - used to think a bit too much about stuff).

There was something in this song that tickled my deepest subconscious primal fears... And, for some reason, I seemed to enjoy that in a pertty twisted way.

Once it was over, I still was unsure about whether I liked it or not, but one thing was objective (aside from the über-awesomeness of the production and the deliciousness of the guitar work): Hollow definitely WAS a memorable song.

And the sound of the record and I were just about to start a musical love story. That's a very curious phenomenon I've experienced a few times before: liking the sound of a band more than I liked their actual songs. I had a very similar thing with Green Day back in 2004 (with the difference that Alice In Chains kick Green Day's ass into outer space, of course). So, at first listen, I found myself wanting to like the songs on The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here more than I actually did.

Of couse, Dinosaurs is nowhere near being an immediate type of record. It takes some time and patience to get to REALLY enjoy it... but so do most of Metallica's albums, and that doesn't diminish their greatness in the least.

I finished the album with a 5,5 rating (even though I'd give it a 9 if I had to revise it right now - I'll have to do that, eventually) and three essential track picks: the ever-haunting Hollow, the super heavy Phantom Limb and the strangely beautiful ballad (?) Hung On A Hook.

Those three songs were still playing in my head on Friday while I was travelling to the big city, probably because I had spent the entire day with them stuck on repeat. And I still wanted more.

And they didn't want to leave me alone either.

I was destined to meet them yet again, during my usual visit to the record store. As soon as I walked into the 'Hard Rock' department, I saw it. We were meeting in the physical world for the first time. And there it was, staring at me from its five slots on the privileged top shelf, with its bright red almost satanic cover, and that creepy dinosaur skull on the front. Lord, the temptation was so big...

But I didn't do it.

"You don't even like it 'that' much", said that stupid voice in my head. "It's only those three songs you sort of fancy."

And so I walked away. Just like that.

How stupid, heh?

I started regretting it as soon as I got home the next day and gave the album another spin.

Because Alice In Chains ARE awesome after all... even if it's taken me so long to get to know them for real.

They have everything I love about grunge music, taken to its finest extreme. They are much more subtle and skilled than Nirvana ever were (which doesn't mean I don't enjoy listening to Nevermind every once in a while), and they're also much heavier. They've really had a hand for guitar sounds since their early years, and it's only grown better with time.

The crystaline transparence of the mix of Dinosaurs is only comparable to the masterful production of Depeche Mode's Delta Machine, and, just like the latter does with electronics, Dinosaurs sort of makes every other guitar album sound obsolete: distorted guitars dense and well-oiled like butter; acoustic guitars that ring like bells; bass roaring like a furious gang of bikers; drums bouncing like basketballs; mix clean and loud like digital; crisp and dirty like analog... THAT's my concept of what a record should sound like... and I hadn't seen such a brilliant example of it ever since KISS released Monster back in 2012.

Freaking awesome.

And then there's the songwriting I overlooked so badly at first (I'm not even sure why).

Despite the first impression you might get from Hollow, you should know that Alice In Chains are not THAT creepy all the time. Hollow is, in fact, a pretty unique song in their catalog. That's probably one of the things that make it so special.

Dinosaurs is quite abundant in more uplifting grunge/Americana mid-tempo songs that go through a wide variety of moods. And, of course, there is a great deal of killer riffing too. But nothing gets quite as dark as the album opener, if that makes you feel better LOL

A couple of songs (like the aforementioned Hung On A Hook) could be called ballads... sort of.

But, even at their poppiest, Alice In Chains never cross the Dave Grohl barrier of indignity, like so many other grunge and post-grunge bands do. And, even when their songwriting gets dangerously close to Americana, they always have that unexpected chord change that shifts the course of the song in a brand new direction (see Scalpel); that mesmerizing guitar solo (see Low Ceiling... and every song on the album), and they DO use fancy guitar effects a lot <3... They are surprisingly good at crafting ambient sounds, and they also have a talent for melodies outside of the tritone doom metal area they don't often get credited for.

If the members of the band formerly known as Tokio Hotel ever have a future, I hope this is the sonic path they are reborn into.

And then there's William DuVall. Even though I wasn't a fan of his vocals (well, in fact it's a bit inaccurate to call them his vocals, since he and Jerry Cantrell are singing in harmony most of the time) at first, I've grown to appreciate them a great deal... as well as the man himself. In fact, I have to admit I like him more than the band's original (and deceased) vocalist Layne Staley (AIC purists, shoot me now). I know this probably makes me a racist, but I have a strange fascination for black men who play in rock bands (probably because it's a pretty rare phenomenon). I had the same thing with Sepultura's Derrick Green, and even with King's X's Doug Pinnick (which reminds me I should give their self-titled album another chance...). And there was also that man... the one with the guitar... what was his name again? Oh, yeah, right, I think it was something like 'Jimi Hendrix' LOL (In case you're wondering - no, this does absolutely NOT extend to Lenny Kravitz).

By the way, did I mention that DuVall plays rhythm guitar too? Heh. Heh. Heh.

So, yeah, the fact of having a black singer (and rhythm guitarrist) on board is a big plus for me. But don't worry... I like a lot of white rock musicians too! LOL Especially Germans ;)

Talking about white musicians - it was fun to discover that James Hetfield actually considers himself a fan of Alice In Chains. Usually, I don't rely too much on my idols' musical tastes because you never know what you can find in there *ahem*, but, in this case, having James Hetfield's appoval sort of makes me feel supported in this new adventure. After all, Alice In Chains might have had a role in shaping Metallica's mid-90s sound... How cool is that? :D

Now that Hollow no longer feels like a menacing stranger, but rather like a friend I love spending time with, I've had the chance to appreciate what a masterpiece of songwriting and guitar work it really is.

The entire song is actually based on just four guitar riffs, tuned really, really low (just the way I like it :D), and yet it's a symphony of masterfully crafted guitar sounds - thousands of them - so delicately entwined with the rhythm guitar and the vocals it's often hard to even understand where they are... or how many of them are there for real. William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell (lead guitarrist, other lead singer, primary songwriter and only blond in the band) create an incredibly complex atmosphere of guitar sounds that serves as the soul to the rhythm guitar's muscle (honestly, I'm not even sure about who plays what LOL), and yet feels completely unintrusive. The truth is I was pretty sure they were using synths at first... until I realized they weren't.

Even the guitar solo in Hollow is subtle. In fact, it's sort of played in the back, while the heavy riffing takes center stage... and, man, that solo is pure evil :D

The secret to the song's sinister monotonous yet unstable limping groove probably resides in its curious 6/4 size. It only shifts back to the traditional 4/4 during the two choruses - which makes the mood change even more intense. When those power chords finally storm in, it feels like Hell is breaking lose right upon you... and yet there is a certain degree of relief in it.

But you won't get any of that stuff until you turn up the volume... which, in my case, turned out to be a problem, because the mix that got played on TV was barely audible (same thing happened with Depeche Mode's Heaven, BTW), and, at that volume, all you get to hear is a creepy monotonous mess.

Such an injustice for such a magnifficent song. Thank God it's never too late to ammend it :)

...Or perhaps I should thank the Devil for putting dinosaurs here in the first place? ;)


The only important thing now is that, the next time I walk into that record store, this album is coming with me. Period.

Until then, I'll have to rely on Spotify, YouTube and the shitty Spotify mobile shuffle play.

Thousands of hours of Alice In Chains playing on repeat are already happening.

...And I though I could never fall in love with a band again.

How awesome is that? :D