Album Review – Amorphis “Circle” 2013

  Twenty years and no bad records. I don’t know that there are many other bands in this scene that could claim the same, and I don’t know what else to say here besides: Amorphis has done it again. Circle might be their best yet, a powerhouse recording that combines the ferocity of Tales From the Thousand Lakes with the sophisticated direction they’ve been following since Tuonela.

The first thing you’ll notice is the album’s almost shocking heaviness. Producer Peter Tägtgren throws a wall of noise up in front of other sounds, and you’ll have to fight your way past the massive drums to find the folk-inspired guitar melodies for which the band is known. However, those melodies are most certainly still there (not to mention the best flute and sax solos you’ll find on a metal record this year), and Tomi Joutsen gives a true showman’s performance to bridge the space between the weight of the mix and the light touches necessary to tell the story of Circle. That story is an original, and not taken from the Kalevala, although it shares the Finnish Epic’s interest in death, rebirth and the healing power of music.

The band has always had a great ear for a catchy chorus and a good head for selecting a single. “Hopeless Days” is as good a choice as any – and I say this out of admiration, not ennui. Record companies need singles; the album doesn’t. Once it’s in your ears, Circle will become a compulsive front-to-back experience where each track makes the next even more necessary.

In this age of single downloads, Amorphis has produced one of the best full-album experiences I’ve heard in years. Circle is their heaviest, most tuneful and most addictive work. Baroness and Mastodon fans, why aren’t you this train yet? 9 out of 10

Derby Things I Will Miss When They’re Gone: Part 4

Derby is changing every day, inching along a continuum that leads from burlesque to mainstream sporting endeavour. It’s where the sport seems to be pulling itself due to (and in spite of) a great deal of debate, so I’m fine with the march toward legitimacy. I will however, mourn the passing of some of the following reminders of the game’s past. They are things that still exist in roller derby, but are under fire, in flux or otherwise doomed to be ground under the wheels of history.

Chapter 1 – Nameyology

Chapter 2 – Booty Short, Legacy Long

Chapter 3 – Billboarded

Chapter 4: No Boys Allowed

This post is a confession, and an apology. And possibly a challenge.

In my time, I’ve been a Men’s Roller Derby hater. I’m working to correct it.

I believe that the sport of women’s flat track roller derby provides a necessary corrective to male-dominated sports culture, and a unique opportunity for women to explore team sport, physical fitness and camaraderie outside the paradigms of conventional athletics. I also believe the necessity for that unique corrective measure is still very much with us. I know, Mr. Seltzer, old-school derby was always presented co-ed, but the revivalists dumped a lot of stuff, including fakeness, and they did so by design.

That being said, merby’s here and it isn’t going anywhere. More and more men are playing, usually with the support of their sister leagues. One day, assisted by genetics and centuries of warrior ethos, some dude will set a record on the flat track in scoring/jumping/protein shake drinking that some very competitive women will spend a long time trying to match. And that will bum me out.  Is men’s derby an amazing sport played by passionate athletes? Hell yeah! Is its growth, right here and now, perhaps weighing heavily on the coat tails of a small but important aspect of the women’s movement?

My answer to that used to be yes, without question. Now I’m coming round to realize that it could be a problem, but it doesn’t have to be, so I can’t judge it until it happens.

I know a lot of male players. These are people who have shed blood, sweat and tears building the women’s game and have spent so much time with it they have come to love it, and want to experience it for themselves. They tell me that they can think of no higher compliment for the game they love than to put themselves to the test in its crucible. I have no counter-argument for this. I can’t tell them to get back in their Widow/Ref-kitchen and make us a rule-set sandwich (hold the Minors). They should play and they shall.

And yet I remember the first time I saw a group of parents, children and athletes gathering together for an autograph signing after a bout. Everyone within 20 feet was a female. I thought “You don’t see that every day.”

And then I thought “Well shit, you should!”

So, do I still hate the Bro-ller Derby? Can you love the player and not the game? All the songs suggest you can, but I know it’s not that simple.

My gravest concern remains, which is that the men’s game will draw the public’s eye and we’ll end up in a situation where the male game is the default and the female is the alt-version. You know, LIKE EVERY OTHER SPORT IN HISTORY. I’m going to sound like a pompous ass when I say this, but I can’t think of any other way: Men, you have been given partial custody of something women hold precious. Don’t screw it up.

That’s the main thing. There are other nitpicks too:

I’m still inclined to cringe when I’m at a tournament and I am told that Team X’s star player cannot participate because she was taken out in a co-ed scrimmage, likely by what Captain Lou El Bammo calls the “Dude Major Penalty”.*

At the moment, I still think the guys took a game that was just finding its feet in terms of complex strategy and put the hamfist right back into it.

I think I will always hate the uniforms.

But I love Roller Derby. I love the game, and I love the people. All the people: Refs and NSOs and announcers, volunteers and fans. I love roller girls and roller boys, who I guess I should just call “skaters” henceforth.

Mea Culpa. I’m working on it. Work with me.

Levity!

*Simultaneous High/Back Block with Forearms. Guy Jammers new to the game do not check speed when approaching walls.

Comments? Hit the form below! Just don’t tell MRDA where to find me.

Derby Things I Will Miss When They’re Gone: Part 3

Derby is changing every day, inching along a continuum that leads from burlesque to mainstream sporting endeavour. It’s where the sport seems to be pulling itself due to (and in spite of) a great deal of debate, so I’m fine with the march toward legitimacy. I will however, mourn the passing of some of the following reminders of the game’s past. They are things that still exist in roller derby, but are under fire, in flux or otherwise doomed to be ground under the wheels of history.

Chapter 1 concentrated on derby names, and Chapter 2 was about uniforms and flair. This time let’s look at something outside the skaters…

Chapter 3: Posters

Poster by Sara Montgomery. Images found at Fracture Magazine

The Leafs don’t produce a poster for each game they play. Neither do the Knicks. Nor even does your local little league T-ball team.You don’t see the Boston Bruins advertising their next game with a marquee billboard of Zdeno Chara lasering a fighter jet from the sky with his eye-beams,* and I’m pretty sure the next Monday Night Football will not be billed as a Hallowe’en/Wild West/Mardi Gras/Star Wars Showdown**.

And one day, derby will have evolved beyond the need for such things, and I will actually rejoice, because then we will have made it. Spectacle requires a poster. Sport does not. I will miss the rock and roll, Russ Meyer-inspired graphics, but in my perfect future, the evolution progresses thusly:

2009: “Hey, check out that poster. We should go to that.”

2014: “When’s the next roller derby?”

2020: “Check the sports feed to see who Gotham is playing this week”.

The loss of the need for this talent would be an excellent problem to have, derby-wise. The poster designers could apply their genius to merchandise and t-shirts. In my perfect future I would have homes for many of them at my wildly successful clothing line Burns and Buckle.

Poster by Adam Swinbourne, Future VP Creative of Burns and Buckle

Right now, derby is (of necessity) selling the sizzle and not the steak. However, slowly but surely, we’re teaching the fans what a good steak tastes like. All we have to do is keep the steakhouse standing long enough for the glorious day when Ma and Pa Derby, all on their own, have a hankering.

My Unwanted Advice: Keep Derbying On. This is going to be an awesome problem to have one day. Hang on to those soon-to-be-vintage posters, and check out the awesome repository of graphics over at Fracture Magazine.

Lovers? Haters? Venture capital for my non-existent business? Hit the comments below!

*Any Photoshoppers out there willing to do this for me? Because it’s the best idea I’ve had in ages.

**Never do a Circus theme. People see you on the way to the afterparty and yell “Juggalo!”

Next Time: They’re gonna MRDA me.

Album Review: KMFDM “Kunst” 2013

  Like Zeno’s Arrow, KMFDM have been making each album for the past decade or so just a little bit worse than the one before, like an infinite series that never quite hits bottom.

Kunst comes closer than ever.

I’m a long-time KMFDM apologist, loving their if-you-don’t-like-it-you-don’t-get-it BS approach  to faking it until you make it. But this is getting tired. The band kicks things off with the title track, a KMFDM standard constructed lyrically from bits of random doggerel and the band’s own song titles through the ages. They do this every damn time, and the only new bit of life in “Kunst” is a throwback joke to the ancient controversy over the group’s mysterious name.

After that, things just kind of meander. The bands political hearts remain in the right places on “Pussy Riot”, and there are some interesting collaborations with the Morlocks and William Wilson (no surprise, allowing guest artists to steal the show is one of Sascha K’s better qualities) as well as “I ♥ Not”, a tale of obsessive love with samples by toddler Asia Konietzko. That’s right, it’s a family business!

A sausage factory entry from a band that can be angry, silly, audacious and infuriating, Kunst tries a bit of unwise unfamiliar territory by daring to be dull. 4.5 out of 10

Derby Things I Will Miss When They’re Gone: Part 2

Derby is changing every day, inching along a continuum that leads from burlesque to mainstream sporting endeavour. It’s where the sport seems to be pulling itself due to (and in spite of) a great deal of debate, so I’m fine with the march toward legitimacy. I will however, mourn the passing of some of the following reminders of the game’s past. They are things that still exist in roller derby, but are under fire, in flux or otherwise doomed to be ground under the wheels of history. Part 1 of the story, along with various disclaimers, can be found here.

Chapter 2: Fishnets

Well, not specifically fishnets, but what we’ll call Skater Determined Uniform pieces. The traditional, lingerie-inspired looks are giving way to purely athletic gear. Once again, I am fine with this from a sport-growth perspective, but I think that when the day comes that all skaters look professional, dri-fit and, well, uniform we may have lost something. I’m not talking about sex.* A skater has no responsibility to dress sexy according to my standards, but, as the sport stands today, neither is it her job to dress according to someone else’s notion of what an athlete should be.

…Or Is It?

I’m sure you’ve seen some of the flame wars. Modern Derby is the first sport to grow up entirely inside the internet, and that has influenced the level of discourse surrounding it. “You got Jocks in my subculture!” “You got Hipsters in my sport!” I think the blending of these ingredients, like peanut butter cups, has been as delicious as it is surprising. But that blend is also contentious and uniforms are just another battleground in the Derby Culture War currently underway.

There is a gap in perception between how derby players actually dress and the more traditional images being used to market the sport. I don’t actually know too many people who dress like the girl in the poster above. But the posters persist. Personally, I don’t think this is necessarily bad for business. We know that we’ll all be driving Chevy Volts eventually, but that hasn’t stopped GM from sticking the Camaro front and centre in the marketing materials.

I’m sure in time all will be well, and consensus will eventually be reached (or not, whatever we pick looks bad on at least one body type). I just hope this process is left up to evolution and not done by fiat. Nowadays whenever I see a Fresh Meat Tutu I hope that she’s given the chance to grow out of it herself without a) somebody on the internet telling her she’s Dragging Down The Sport or, more horribly, b) being given the gears by her own teammates, something that would be called “hazing” in traditional sporting context. Ain’t nobody joining derby for that.

My Unwanted Advice: For your charter team, get the jumpers on if it makes you feel profesh. Make sure you still allow some of your fan favourites to show some flair.** For home teams and rec leagues, establish some guidelines for colour and then go to town.

*WTF. I know.

**Black-Eyed Skeez’s Darth Vader Helmet is the perfect example of where functionality, uniqueness and sheer terror intersect.

Questions? Concerns? Outrage? Please feel free to hit the Comments section.

Next time: The Marquee d’Obsolescence

Things Roller Derby Must Lose (and Why I Will Miss Them)

Since the sport is in the throes of another “OMG what is happening to our hobby” spasm concerning the new WFTDA skill requirements, I thought now would be the time to share some personal reflections on the evolution of the world’s greatest and fastest growing game in a series of posts, here on my personal blog so no one but me gets the blamethrower.

So one more time with the disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are entirely my own. I do not represent WFTDA, AFTDA or any of the teams with whom I have the pleasure of working.

Derby is changing every day, inching along a continuum that leads from burlesque to mainstream sporting endeavour. It’s where the sport seems to be pulling itself due to (and in spite of) a great deal of debate, so I’m fine with the march toward legitimacy. I will however, mourn the passing of some of the following reminders of the game’s past. They are things that still exist in roller derby, but are under fire, in flux or otherwise doomed to be ground under the wheels of history.

Chapter 1: The Name Thing

Recently some of my favourite skaters decided to eschew the punny derby names of their youth and go by their actual names. This made me sad, but that’s how things are going. A lot of ink has been spilled on this matter by finer minds than mine, but let me explain myself a bit better:

I’m not sad because it’s bad for the sport – I will miss Semi-Precious but I will still have the privilege of watching Hanna Murphy skate a tremendous bout. That doesn’t change.

I’m not sad because they are doing anything wrong – It’s their name and they can do whatever they want with it for whatever reason. AHA – there it is!

I AM sad if that reason is because they believe that dropping silly names will propel the game forward. In the here and now, it won’t. Derby’s not ready yet, and won’t be for a while. As long as we still need Demo Jams, we’re probably safe keeping the names. I feel like our children may skate under their own names, but we should enjoy the fun ones while we can. To paraphrase the ever-useful Homer Simpson, this sounds like a problem for Future Derby.

I’m not touching the question of whether certain names are appropriate or not. My profession has a procedure for clearing that (hosting league sets community standards) and that’s working so far.

I’m also pretty close to this matter personally. As an announcer, the names add a lot of spice to what I do. I have reasons to be attached to my own moniker as well. My real name is Steve Arkle. Say that out loud and then ponder this:

I should stick to Lightning Slim, no?

My Unwanted Advice: Live it up for now, they’ll get Grandmothered out eventually.

Questions? Concerns? Outrage? Please feel free to hit the Comments section.

Next time: What Not To Tell A Woman Not To Wear

Deals & Steals: That’s a Lotta Vikings!

  Bit of a Nordic influence this time out (again!), and certainly some good tunes found at good prices. This first lot was found at Second Spin:

Leaves Eyes – Vinland Saga $8.99. Moody conceptual stuff about Leif Eriksson’s travels and exploration.

Soilwork – Stabbing the Drama $8.99. Slowly filling in my back catalogue of these Gothenburgers and In Flames BFFs.

At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul $4.49. Speaking of Gothenburg, there wasn’t an identifiable scene until this album melted everyone’s faces.

Dark Tranquillity – Character $2.49. One of their best.

Destroy Destroy Destroy – Battle Sluts $5.00. Actually an American band. But that title! Sounds like Cradle of Filth meets Manowar. Perfect touring partner for 3iob.

Not Viking but a bit Scottish (and awesome):

Murder Inc. – Locate Subvert Terminate: The Complete Murder Inc. $3.99. So nice to hear a remaster of this marvelous Killing Joke side project with Chris Connelly. Behold, Scot-industrial rap:

And in the super-bargain category, some finds from the local thrift store. Each were only one or two bucks apiece!

Green Day – American Idiot. Overplayed? True. Overplayed because actually very good? Also true.

Promonium Jesters – Time and Place. I once saw these Ontario industrialists open for Hanzel und Gretyl. Their recorded output has a steal-from-the-best quality to it, including some spot-on Skinny Puppy influence.

  Kraftwerk – The Mix. Worth it just to find out I’ve been singing the chorus wrong all these years. Still, fun fun fun!