I have a playlist problem. So, I have a lot of Halloween and Halloween-adjacent playlists. Some I have that are just massive & I listen to them on random. Some are a little more compact. What are your favorite Halloween songs? Anything I’m missing, songs or themes?
As I have finished up, damnit I forgot Filmage, Tenacious D’s Pick of Destiny (& the TV show), Crossroads, Purple Rain, Frank, CB4, Big Money Hustlas, Salad Days, Pump Up The Volume, We Are Lady Parts, Popstar, Beavis & Butt-head, Breakin’, Pirate Radio, & more. I’m gonna have to do a part 2. Or maybe this is part 2 or 3 already? I blogged about rock movies back in 2012 a bit, & about rock docs.
The latest one is Contradictions / Companions and it’s made up of songs that contradict or compliment each other. I mainly listen to Amazon Music, but this one was fun so I copied it to Spotify too.
I have a bunch more weird ones. Sometimes I reach out to Oddly Specific Playlists on Facebook or r/punk for help. Some have a specific order, some are designed for chaos goblins who always choose random.
Here’s some fun ones if you listen to Amazon, let me know if you want me to copy them to Spotify! (I usually do that with Tune My Music):
So, I guess I had no idea that AI music was as advanced as it is. I assumed the stuff I saw on social medial was from paid or sophisticated programs. I have been monkeying casually with text prompts at ChatGPT or Meta AI, and image generators at DALL-E 2, Craiyon, & in the PicsArt app for a while. Luma AI even animates photos in the creepiest way possible. I have recently started messing with Google’s Gemini, too.
While the first two AI song generators that popped up when I googled did not require me to download an app or pay any money, I was able to have them bang out a song in less than a minute. The second one even let me insert lyrics, so I used ChatGPT & Gemini to write lyrics. Of course I chose punk rock, and the subject matter was just me poorly describing the blog. This stuff is wild.
The prompt was: “World (and Lunar) Domination” a punk rock song about drawing mazes and writing goofy letters.
For some reason, I can’t seem to embed these ones. 🤷
AI Music Factory automatically spits out 2 songs from the same prompts.
All of the songs are generic pop punk, street punk, and a weird attempt at some uncanny valley-ish horns. They are formulaic pop punk, of which I could certainly be accused of doing when I was actively playing in bands. The weird part is that is not all that dissimilar from my actual creative output. The lyrics have some interesting ideas & hooks too, if I’m being honest. Does that mean I am a terrible and generic songwriter? Perhaps my lack of commercial success in that area speaks to that. 😆
Self-depreciating humor aside, I feel like I have been involved in the creation of some fun, silly, & kick-ass music, and I was never really doing it for financial gain or recognition. It was an itch that I needed to scratch. I needed to make art via punk rock.
The above songs are derivative of a thousand different punk bands, but the one vocalist sounds oddly like Bad Religion. All of it is stealing from something though. Is it scouring the whole internet? Is it using Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, Apple Music, or Amazon Music? Is it creeping on hard drives in home studios or at record companies?
I feel like this is really close to having the ability to be passed off as a real band. It even reminds me of Crotchduster,
Is it theft, or inspiration? I would not have picked up a guitar and tried to write punk rock songs if I had not heard the Ramones & the Misfits doing what they did. Led Zeppelin’s entire catalog is arguably not entirely derivative of everything that passed through Jimmy Page’s earholes. (I mean, George Lucas did the same thing with Star Wars – it was just Flash Gordon, The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, & Dune.)
It can be argued that the music is soulless. I get that. I need music to move me in some way, in order to feel that connection. There are already lots of human generated songs out there that don’t really hit me that way. It’s terrible when a song evokes no emotion. I feel that way about Nickelback, even though it’s unironically cool to like them now. Ha ha.
In keeping with the theme of this post, I also used a bunch of AI image generators with various prompts about my blog, and got some weird weird wild stuff. None of them seem to accurately display text whatsoever at all… but the compositions, colors, & design choices are interesting. Is is stolen work though?
It was said that Robin Williams was notorious for stealing bits, but I have read/heard that he was always “on,” and just pulling in ideas and churning out jokes at a constant speed… he may not have realized that his thoughts weren’t entirely his own. But then again, were they? Everything we think, say, & do is a response to our own audio & visual input. (And, all the other senses.)
If AI is putting something out, and the way it “senses” is browsing the internet, what’s wrong with that? Is it stealing because it is not alive? Is it just a tool like a paintbrush or a calculator? Is AI song generation different than loops or sampling or guitar pedals that drastically change a tone?
Images generated by various AI image generators, with prompts pretty much just describing my blog.
🤘🐈⬛🎸
Because every single one of my thoughts also has an incomprehensibly tangential aside, I just did this as the idea came to me while blogging:
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖒𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖑 𝖐𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖓 𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖌 – I had ChatGPT write those lyrics a long time ago to be silly. It deleted the chat from the history as it found the content to perhaps be “inappropriate.” Luckily I grabbed a screenshot. I just used my last freebie at AI Music Factory to make this, and unlike with the other songs, I actually downloaded the mp3’s because I find it wildly amusing. AI plays guitar better than Kerry King.
“FEED THE KITTEN” album art by Meta AI“Feed The Kitten” by ChatGPT
So, did I just write a song? No. But… I had the idea for one. It, much like my own artistic output, was a silly idea. (I was always sad that Gasoline Dion never completed songs that we were working on, including but not limited to “667, Across the Street From the Beast” and the ever poetic line “Let me put my meat hook in your beef curtains.”)
I just let my 10yo daughter hear the metal kitten song. She laughed and said it sounds like everything else I listen to (she’s a Taylor Swift fan). When I told her it was AI generated in under a damn minute & that ChatGPT wrote the lyrics, her eyes got wide and was all “That’s not good…”
She immediately understood the implications. Anyone could make a hit album. We could all be Milli Vanilli. Even better, you could probably create a video avatar of an artist or band. I haven’t delved into AI generated video past the tiny Luma AI clips.
Would using AI as a muse, or to flesh out partial lyric ideas be “wrong?” Are we in an era like the early days of sampling where soon someone will figure out how to give artists royalties for music or artwork being fed into AI? I know there are already cases out there. I also know you can’t copyright AI images. Not sure about music, though? I know Mötley Crüe was accused of using AI to write songs.
Will commercials, social media, radio, TV, & movies forgo traditional composers and just make their own jingles, scores, & soundtracks?
It was fun to play with, but do I like it enough that I will pay for it? I doubt it. I can’t think of a practical use for myself other than making a fictional band or something… and who would want AI generated crap content right now? If I paid to put it on streaming services (if you can even copyright it), how would that generate income or even be sustainable? Live shows would be (for now) out of the question. I don’t think it would “feel good” to put that out, like it does to release actual music you created. Maybe kids will dig AI music in the future… or our eventual robot overlords might.
Because I can’t stop, Luma AI animations of AI generated images:
OK, I went back & messed with Udio again. I found where you could pop in the kitten lyrics from Chat GPT. I do not like the output nearly as much, but it’s still pretty wild:
So, what are your thoughts on AI generated stories, art, music, & video? Are we in the wild west? Do you use any of it? If you do use it, what sites/apps, and to what end? Please, hit up the comments!
Oh yeah, those sites automatically generated videos I could download too.
So, I’ve written about Metallica before (twice). I can see all this shenanigans about the new single. Honestly, I like it. Hating on Metallica has become low hanging fruit at best to edgelording or gatekeeping at worst, As fans, we all poke fun at our favorite stuff. I’m looking at you, Star Wars and Danzig people.
Lux Æterna
I found the new one to be a banger. It feels thrashy like KIll ‘Em All, with pop sensibilities like the black album.
I recently posted a reply to a comment of my posting of the video on Facebook, but the original comment was deleted by the author and my subsequent reply has been lost to the 1’s & 0’s I guess.
The gist of what I was getting at was as follows…
To say metallica has lost or hasn’t been good for decades? I get it, and it’s certainly a valid opinion. People have been saying they “sold out” since Ride the Lightning.
Metallica didn’t hit my radrar until …And Justice for All came out. I hadn’t listened to anything much beyond Top 40 radio or oldies at that point. I worked backwards and was caught up in the magic of Kill ‘Em All and Master of Puppets. I wasn’t aware of the punk scene in 1977 when I was born, but I wouldn’t call myself less of a Misfits fan because I wasn’t around? You could probably assume with great certainty that each Metallica album brought in new fans upon it’s release.
I could also argue that Metallic’s output is quantifiably better than most when compared to their peers or contemporaries.
Say in sheer influence in heavy music, Black Sabbath comes the closest. (OK, maybe Led Zeppelin too, but I’ll go with Sabbath here as Zeppelin ended.) You could say that there drop-offs in interest post-Ozzy & again post-Dio. Does that mean that Iommi and Geezer are any less lauded in the riff lord category? I don’t think so. Their early output is so epic and influential, they could release an album of pip farting on a snare drum and it shouldn’t detract from their legacy. James still writes killer riffs. Kirk is still a master of stringing together wah-fueled madness. Lars is a great arranger and cunning businessman. I wish they hadn’t done Newsted dirty, but Rob seems like a great fit.
In 1991/1992, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses where arguably the most lucrative and widely known hard rock acts on the planet. They were two of my favorites at the time and I still have fond memories of that epic show at Three Rivers Stadium. Look at what both bands have put out since then. Sure, Metallica dropped a Lulu turd in the sandbox, but you can scoop that out and keep playing. Guns N’ Roses pissed into the swimming pool with Chinese Democracy and everyone had to get out of the pool. This is coming from a guy that liked The Spaghetti Incident?. I liked Death Magnetic & Hardwired to Self-Destruct. Even St. (B)Anger got better with time. James, Lars, Kirk, & Rob seem on top of their game. Maybe the rhythmic chugs are more of a gallop these days. Slash has improved so much over time, Duff got sober. Axl’s voice went out the window with his grasp of reality & last vestiges of sanity. I couldn’t even tell you who else was in the band, to the end that I actually just miss Velvet Revolver at this point.
Megadeth? Sure, Dave Mustaine can arguably play guitar better than James or Kirk… may be better at writing or arranging songs… has definitely put out more albums in the same timespan… But who has heard them? There have been a revolving cast of players, each successively thrown under the bus, probably the same Greyhound that drove Dave from NYC home to San Francisco. Seriously, the only press that they have received in the last decade that wasn’t Dave commenting on Metallica has been Dave Ellefson’s whacking it on webcam. This led Dave M. to discount all of the former’s contributions over the years.
AC/DC can make the same album over & over again for decades and it can be great… but not everyone can get away with that.
I’m anxious to hear your thoughts in the comments. What do you think? I’m looking forward to the new album. Will I still poke fun at Metallica? You bet I will. Will I enjoy the rest their new stuff? I sure hope so.
Check out my Metallica related playlists. I had a good one on Spotify that I am in the process of rebuilding for Amazon Music.
Halloween has the coolest music. I have made some playlists on various platforms over the years, Amazon & Spotify being the most recent. I thought I’d not only put them all in once place, but also share. I’m always adding to them and changing. I’m listening to the 1st list now.
This isn’t all an all-out super in-depth review, but I wanted to post that I really enjoyed the show the other night at Stage AE with Ascend the Fallen, The Bloody Seamen, Lady Beast, & Dethlehem. All of the bands put forth a great effort, and the (giant) crowd was pleased. I managed to take a ridiculous amount of photos, and some of them even turned out pretty cool.
Professor Richard Smallchange (Channeling Lord Bonecrush) & Hairy Valentine
If you’re on the Facebook and know the bands (or anyone else) in the photos, please tag ’em!
Ascend the Fallen
Ascend the Fallen was all over the place… literally. They’re quite the active bunch up on stage. They run n’ jump all over the place & had the crowd all riled up. Those cats can shred. They were a perfect opener for this gig, getting everyone ready for the things to come.
The Bloody Seamen
The Bloody Seamen always blow me away. Their showmanship & dedication to character is unmatched. My wife (who’s not a metal fan by any means) saw them for the first time the other night & became an instant fan. Their catchy choruses, funny tales, and ridiculous stage presence will easily shanghai many a fan. Something about everyone yelling during some of the aforementioned catchy choruses & the melodies have a very Dropkick Murphys/Flogging Molly sort of feel. I’m sure the fife, accordions & bagpipes don’t hurt there either. I’m going to have to try to barter with some doubloons to get my hands on some of their bootleg demos or something to hold me off until they have a proper album out for purchase. Also… where else can you see a guitarist snap all of their strings with a machete at the end of their set, a fire-breathing sea-captain, and a bass player with a really creepy dead eye? The highlight the other night was watching “Filthy” Cheswick Springdale decided to throw his guitar on the ground & assault it with his combo amp head while it squealed, only yo expertly cut it off when the song ended by unplugging the feedbacking beast.
Gunny
Lady Beast
Lady Beast rocked hard. One dude on guitar had a Ravelle and made me extremely jealous. Their singer is one hell of a positive role model for women into metal. There were more ladies packed in front of the stage for their set than I have ever seen at a predominantly metal show in all my years of going to & playing shows combined. It doesn’t hurt that she’s got great pipes and the band has a really heavy attack without sacrificing groove or melody. These cats can play hard. I’ll be anxiously awaiting their album, and I plan to check out more of their gigs!
Deb
Overlord Brom
Dethlehem
Of course, I may have biased opinions on Dethlehem. They are absolutely ridiculous, and no one deserved headline an all-local-acts show at Stage AE more than them. These guys put a crazy amount of effort into not only the performance… but the song-writing, the shredding, the drumming, the singing, the over-all story arc, the costumes, and the entire production. Someone needs to interview them & ask about the stuff they do to constantly take their playing & song-writing to the next level. Trust me, it’s intense. Sometimes people might look over that due to the theatrics.
Dethlehem
It was great to be there for the first full show of the new Brutalitus the Bloodbeard, and it was very cool that Professor Dick Smallchange helped narrate and channeled Lord Bonecrush, joining the apparently chronic self-pleasuring barbarian-turned-blacksmith Sean “Hairy” Valentine for an encore. The troll/ogre being made a eunuch, the birthing & bloody decapitation of said newborn, …both fantastic moments of on-stage debauchery. The music itself was spectacular… with fretboard acrobatics by Bovice and Hildor, a helmeted Brom for nearly the entire show, Davidicus is truly a wizard of the low-end and keeping things going between songs with the interludes. Bloodbeard proves himself to be a mighty vocalist, looking forward to his development with the band.
Headbangin' Hairy
I found a bunch of cool videos of that night online, enjoy!
If you have any links to more photos and/or video, please share!
This is awesome. That’s all. Not sure if this is the original source, seems to be everywhere. You may have seen it already. At any rate, I dig it, and I was compelled to share. You can find some of these at a higher resolution, but I haven’t found all of the close-ups. If you have more, please share!
This topic was by my friend Laurel the other night at the Dropkick MurphysShamrock-N-Roll tour. I know I’ve had this conversation before with others. I decided to take it & digitally run with it. Stereotypes are generally a bad idea, but they sure are funny. A punk rock show, or really any show… is full of them. I’ll start a list. You’ll contribute in the comments.
“That” guy. Formerly known as “the guy that wears the shirt of the band he’s going to see”, but shortened to “that guy” because that’s a mouthful. I’ve been that guy. I bet you’ve been that guy. Somehow it’s sometimes seen as cool… and sometimes not. This is probably more acceptable/expected at a Misfits or ICP show than anywhere else.
The “Windmill” Guy. Generally, he’s in a college hoodie, maybe even with his Greek letters on it. He’s visibly drunk, and probably double-fisting when not in the pit, flailing his arms around in an effort to be cool and badass by totally missing the point of slam-dancing or moshing by trying to hurt people… and take as much punishment as they can get. You can also spot them by the off-kilter fitted cap, thank Fred Durst for these toolbags.
Old Creepy Guy. I’m rapidly becoming this guy. I’m cool with that. The recent Shamrock-N-Roll show saw a really diverse group of concert-goers. There were grandmas & grandkids all over the place! Generally though, at smaller shows… there’s a lone dude just hangin’ out that doesn’t seem like he’d be into whatever’s going on at all.
Your new best friend. Cat comes up & starts talking like you’re old buds. No big deal right? You’re obviously both fans of the same band, you’re both there. What’s the harm? The conversation turns way too intimate or inappropriate quite soon. You have no escape. This guy’s probably drunk. Hopefully, anyway. He has no concept of personal space, and is telling you all about the band/joke/logo on your T-shirt.
The “Stuffed Sausage”. Generally a petite-in-height but not in girth young lady with self-esteem issues. Most likely she started as quite an attractive curvy woman, but donned about 3 lbs. of makeup, pushed up and bared most of her boobies, hung some butt cheeks out of a tiny skirt or shorts… and all of her clothing is about 2 sizes too small. I’m not hatin’, I’m just sayin’.
The nearly blind-drunk guy. There’s always a stumbler ambling through the crowd that’s just there for beer. At $30-$50 for a concert ticket without TicketBastard fees, and $7-$9 per tiny draft beer… the whole concept is pretty ridiculous. This guy generally looks like he doesn’t belong anyway. He squints to see, walks sideways while looking straight ahead, and smells like the floor of a brewery.
The militant lesbian. I’m not going to say much here, for fear of getting beat up. The partially shaved head and camo pants are a sexy sexy combo that’s always in style.
Lookatmytats. This dude or dudette has spent thousands of dollars & hours under the needle, so they wear as little clothing as possible in order to bare their epidermal canvass. I would too were I all inked up, I think. Generally this is accompanied by gauges or other “non-traditional” piercings. Not to be confused with Lookatmytatas, who needs no explanation.
Wikipedia Guy. This one is always directly behind or in front of me at concerts where you have an actual seat… also prevalent at Pens games. Wikipedia guy isn’t here to be entertained, he’s here to wow the people with him & anyone in earshot with his knowledge of the band’s formation, various lineups, demo material, and complete discography including various pressings and formats. I’m in danger of being this guy, and it’s so annoying. I love my music & trivia… but try to only spout when asked, & not broadcast it.
That’s my starter list.
I know I’m missing more than a few that I see regularly, but I’m hoping someone else will think of them too… so I’m not all alone here. What about the kid with headphones? The super-fan? The crying girl? The PDA couple?
Please, leave the name of your concert-going stereotype in the comments section below. If you’re feeling creative, how about a description too? If you have landed here via Facebook or Twitter & you’re still logged in there… you can comment below with no hassles. You can also just comment w/o logging in. WordPress just asks for a name & an email address to go along with your comments, with the option of a URL.
What stereotype are you? Which one do you love? Which one do you hate? Which one are you? Which one am I? Have any comments/additions/corrections to the ones I’ve already listed?
Perhaps I’ll compile another blog with all the results, perhaps they’ll just live in the comments section… but I need your help making the list!
So, last night I broke my normal “school night” routine of hanging out at home (or at least getting home by a decent time) to check out a local show that I could not resist. If you’ve read the blog, I’m obviously a Dethlehem fan. In addition to those medieval fantasy knuckleheads, the Pirates that “crashed” their CD release party were on the bill; The Bloody Seamen (apparently known in some circles asThe Flying Dutchmen). I’ve been wanting to check those cats out for a while, so this alone was a no-brainer. The other band was The Approach & The Execution. They’re out on tour from Cleveland, OH… but we won’t hold that against them. The place was Howler’s, and I know it well. Bengt is a hell of a sound-guy. I haven’t exercised my photography muscles in a while. All of the right ingredients added up to getting my lazy old musician behind out to a week-night show.
These guys were up first, and they just ripped it all apart right out of the gate. I’m pretty sure there were 5,692 guitars on stage and their lead cat went through all of them… even knocking one from the stage to the floor at one point. There was screaming, there was “woah-ing”, there was shredding, there was thunderous drumming, there was harmonizing vocals, there was dueling leads, there was even muscle flexing choreography. The one highlight of the set for me is when the one dude on vocals & guitar was playing a show soulful lead… and the dude next to him was shredding circles around it. It was later in the set, and I hope that song’s on the CD that I picked up, The Blood March. These guys were incredibly tight, & played really well off of each other. Apparently they had some setbacks in the way of van trouble and had to have AAA & some friends bail ’em out. They had a vehicle-less trailer out front. Hopefully they make it to their next destination tonight, so they can melt the faces of the next group of new fans! (Interestingly, I popped the CD in on the way to work this morning… and heard keyboards & a chick vocalist… neither of which were at the live show. I’m only 3 songs in so far, but I wonder what’s up there?)
These dudes are hardcore. They show up in full pirate regalia, and don’t break character easily. I even got a “business scroll” from Captaine Blackguts when inquiring about obtaining some recorded material! For all I know, these cats really are pirates, and have a ship docked somewhere on the Allegheny river. (Although, the one guitar player Cheswick looks a lot like the guy from Deathmobile/The It’s Alive Show…) This is a band of buccaneers that knows how to work a room, and work it they did. They definitely put a gleaming sharp metal edge on some really catchy drinking songs, with fighting, fornicating, plundering, and treasure thrown in for good measure. They seemed to cross musical genres with some straight up rock and some more funky/groovy stuff. Any band with a guy named “pipes” that plays the accordion, what think was a fife or some kind of small flute, and the bagpipes alongside screaming guitars is cool in my book. These guys know what they’re doing. I bought a T-shirt because no CD’s exist yet. I had sort of hoped they’d bust into “Friggin’ in the Riggin’” or “Whiskey in the Jar“, but alas… they were more original than that. I will definitely be at more of these guys’ shows. I just hope they weren’t distracting us with awesome swashbuckling metal as the rest of their crew picked our pockets and stole our women.
Have I told you how much I hate these guys? I mean, they have people that come out to their shows in costume. How cool is that? That’s fan dedication! Bovice and Hildor make seemingly effortless movements across the fret-board that put me under a musical spell. I wish I could unlock the secret to that power… or had the patience to practice like a madman. Davidicus is indeed a wizard with the low-end, weaving together the ridiculous guitars and Brom’s pulverizing rhythms while managing to still have a voice of his own. Lord Bonecrush commands your attention as he’s belting out tales of their conquests. He even let a guest get up to help belt out “Blood Forest”. Slaying orcs and harnessing dragons is hard work, but these guys have the time to do it, then to tell you about it. They follow a rich oral tradition as old as the first hunter coming back and telling how he captured his prey to provide dinner for all, and you’d better appreciate it. These warriors are going places. I expect a cartoon series, live action movie, a graphic novel that transitions into a monthly series, and some damn stickers, patches, and pins soon. I believe a side-quest with the Bloody Seamen is inevitable. I vote that it gets put out on vinyl as well as digital download.
⚔☠⚔
As stated above, I got some photos from the show. I have them up on Photobucket and will probably eventually have them all on Facebook too.
![Metallica Fans: We want more sounds that sound like Kill 'Em All."
Metallica: [Releases "Lux Æterna"]
Metallica Fans: NO, NOT LIKE THAT!](https://aixelsyd13.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/picsart_22-11-30_18-49-04-262.jpg?w=520)
World (and Lunar) Domination 