For me releasing an album was always a full service story: record demo, get the contract with a company, record album, distribute it using “regular channels”, pretty complicated, I might say, reasons for which not many do it. Including us, me and my band, that is. We recorded like 7-8 songs, never released them, even if we discussed about it a lot of times.

But the fact is that in today’s world, things can work using other ways of promoting yourself, the internet is such a huge channel for communicating your music, so many bands get out there using the internet that “the regular” way of doing things may die soon…Or already did?

This post came to me after listening this song on YouTube, I didn’t know the band, Company Of Thieves, the song is Even In The Dark. I liked it, but most of all I was intrigued by the way they did this, the recorded it on a mountain, not even in a room.

What can I say? I like it, and it didn’t work so bad, they have like 15k views, for one single song recorded on a mountain, it’s equivalent to a good show in front of 15k people. How many of us can say they can skip the occasion of playing in front of 15k people?

Well? What do you say about it?

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I wanted to say a few things here but I just don’t know what to say. I’m speechless!

Really, enjoy and comment!

Later edit:

After posting this, I have been pointed by my internet buddy Pzychotropic (Mac) to this impersonation of Jimi Hendrix. If you don’t get it from the first moment, that’s the guy from Police Academy!

I ask myself, can these guys actually sing, if they are able to use their voices this way?

And now stumble that, or even blog about it ;-) !

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What is the source of the creativity for all the artists around? What makes them come up with all those beautiful songs and lyrics?

From where I’m standing, the source of creativity is pain or at least the lack of inner peace…

I mean, do you see a great composer happy with himself, not having any dare in his life, working from 9 to 5 on his piano? We see all day long great artists doing foolish things, we sometimes laugh, we sometimes blame them, hey, look at this stupid guuy, he has all he wants and still does this crap…

Did you ever think that he may need that crap to stay alive from a creative point of view?

I mean we all love and hopefully we look for and find inner peace. Probably great composers too, but do you really think that all those love songs that we love would have been created if the composer was happy and happy with his life?

For me, Bon Jovi’s “In these arms” describes it best:

I would do anything Id beg, Id steal, Id die
To have you in these arms tonight
Baby I want you like the roses want the rain
You know I need you like a poet needs the pain
I would give anything my blood my love my life
To have you in these arms tonight

Considering the last period, with Michael Jackson being dead and all the buzz around his life, do you think his creativity would have been the same if his life would have taken a different path 40 years ago?

What do you think?

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Today I have read the funniest conversation ever about Manowar (again Manowar).

It is between a dad and his 6 years old daughter, about rock and pop music.

I love Manowar but I do have the power to make fun of such stories.
If you have a bit of sense of humor, you should really read it here. The story is called Death match: Manowar vs Jonas Brothers.

By the way, I don’t know who Jonas Brothers are. Do you?

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Today, Costin told me about a video of our band on YouTube, a video that Mihai put up from a concert and the recorded song, and uploaded on YouTube.

I didn’t know about it, but it’s nice to see it.

So, even if you have heard the song before, see it on YouTube again, this time with video, not only audio: the song is Nu-mi pasa (I don’t care). At the moment we played this, Mihai was not with us, he was video recording this. See the whole band here.

So, enjoy listening and comment!

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I was reading an interview with Eric Adams from Manowar this morning and I found it very interesting to see how they compose a song. Quite very interesting, I’d say…

So I will just reproduce here that part from the interview of Eric Adams on Metal-Rules.com, I hope I won’t get complains for copying it. So here it is:

How do you guys get to where you have the songs selected? I mean, is it just…

EA: Usually it’s if, I mean, if Joey writes the song, if he comes up with the idea, he generally comes up with the idea and–I don’t know why but it is usually two or three o’clock in the morning, because I get the phone call about that time-and he’ll always say, “I can’t continue on this song until I hear if it’s in your key, if it’s good for you.”

So I come over to his house, right away, while he’s hot and we work on it together. Once we come up with a melody together, we kind of piece the song together, and then everyone gets over to his place (we have our own studio over at his place) and we work on it as a band. Then it’s a song.

Then we move on to the next one. And that’s how it is. Then, we generally go back to it after awhile, with fresh ears, and we listen to it with new ideas.

Then we add the new ideas in. Then we leave it alone for a while. Then we move on to the next song. Then we come back to that one with fresh ears again, until we come back to that song and we say, “OK, does anyone got any more ideas?” And then when everyone has said, “Nah, I can’t think of any, I think that’s it,” then that’s it-the song gets put to bed and we move on. Because you can overproduce a song as well, if you keep on it.

Personally I found it very interesting to work like this. However, they are a professional band, it would be a bit difficult to call my buddy and lead singer in the middle of the night, hey, man, come over to test a song to see if it fits your key…I imagine his joy and willingness to come over…

What do you say about it? Do you call your lead singer in the middle of the night to see how a song would sound?

Later edit: it just hit me, how could a song not be in this guy’s key? It’s said he covers 5.5 octaves! I won’t bet my life but you should listen this:

Well?!

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These days, following the concert I’ve been to, I was thinking what’s actually better, to keep your musical direction over the years or to change it as the wind blows, to keep sales up?

I mean I was thinking about the way people accuse Manowar (is this a subject that keeps on returning to me?!!) of not changing their music too much over time. But isn’t that a good thing? I mean, as we have a saying here in Romania, some may be still searching, they’ve found it!!

Maybe this is what being vertical in music means, to keep your way of doing things(music) no matter how wind blows, how musical genders come and go.

I was thinking about Metallica and how people accused them of selling themselves by making a music that is “connected to our times”. Or Bon Jovi, as a matter of fact. If you put songs like Living on a prayer next to the acoustic ballads they make these days, it won’t sound too much alike, maybe only the voice is the same (and I would also have something to say about it…)

Changing your music over time means adapting, means exploring new grounds, means reaching new fans (how about losing old fans that followed you over the years and can’t find themselves in the music you are making now?).

Keeping your musical direction means adding new fans to old ones, without losing the fans that followed you over time. Maybe it won’t help you too much in exploring new grounds, but it means you have a vertical way of doing things.

Now, this is an older dilema of mine: what should you be: the captain leading the ship until the last moment, dying,  or the rat running away when the ship’s sinking, staying alive?

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Last night I’ve seen Manowar live in Bucharest, Romania.

I am a Manowar fan since highschool, waiting to see them live and be part of their show. I’ve waited this for the last 15 years, hoping they’ll get here. Last night, it happened: Manowar was here, I was there to see them, next to a lot of people of all ages…

I was very nervous since I have waited this for a long time, it was their first time in Romania, a lot of fans waited to see them…

It was a strange feeling, something that I have never felt since a long time, people dressed with t-shirts painted with Manowar, skulls, women and weird daemons, boots, spikes, all these people happy to be there. I was hearing around me people saying hey, Metallica was here, I haven’t been there, Maiden was here, I missed it, but, man, THIS IS MANOWAR, I WOULDN’T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD!!

My thoughts exactly!

Metallica was here, Maiden, Saxon, Helloween, I wasn’t there. Even Vai, I missed that too. But I really wanted to go to see Manowar!

I planned this with Michelle, my band mate and long time school friend, he purchased the tickets to section A, right in front of the stage.

So we headed to Bucharest. Unfortunately, I realized I don’t have anyone of my old t-shirts with skulls, none, fuck, none! The meanest t-shirt I had it was one begging “Please give beer…”. Pathetic…Michelle had one with what he called a dog head with fangs. Later he came back to this and pretended it was some kind of a monster…right. We just couldn’t go to Manowar like this, so we started to look for a “mean” t-shirt. I knew a shop where they used to sell such shirts, I remember I wanted to buy one with Megadeth a couple of weeks ago, so I headed there, the shop was not there anymore…I called Costin, the lead singer, he pointed me to the mall. Right, we went there and we realized these days, “mean t-shirts” come also on pink and orange. Fuck, no!

So we got to Bucharest, reached the location, but we weren’t sure where exactly it was so while at a stop, I lowered the window to ask the guy to my left where’s the location exactly. I looked at them: nice car, “corporate” look for the driver, lady next to him dressed sharp, with large sunglasses, again “corporate” look…hmm… ok, let’s give it a try: where’s the…the guy looks at me and asks me: to Manowar you mean? I would have liked to see my facial expression, probably my jaw was somewhere on the floor…yes…we go there too!

To make a long story short, we bought t-shirts from the band stand, honestly not much to choose from, but hey, any tshirt that says Manowar will do…

At 9 PM we’ve heard the classic “Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America, please hail: MANOWAR!” Fuck, yeaaah! The stage exploded in lights and sound and the show started…

I must tell you I’ve felt like never before, everything was happening right there in front of my eyes, at 15 meters, Eric Adams, Joey DeMaio, Karl Logan and Donny Hamzik (as a temporary replacement for Scott Columbus).

Man, these guys rule! I know they play a role, I am not stupid, but I’ve felt great! Classic hits started to flow, it was damn loud, my langs were pounding from drum kicks and everything was there like it should be. Eric Adams is, as I have always thought, a great frontman, a great performer, he entered the role and played it the way he should.

Classic, “trademarked” high screams and low “Ha!” from his throat, gesture and facial expression, everything was great.

So we reached the 3rd song, if I well remember, Kings of metal! A classic…

In the middle of the song, right on a drum beat, everything shut down. We, the audience, not realizing what it was, continued to sing. Eric Adams was hitting the mic with his palm, the mic was dead. We realized something was wrong, they left the stage: the power was down! Fuck!

The power failure lasted like 20 minutes, moment when Joey came on stage and walking like an emperor started to question us: Did Metallica come here?! Yeaaah!! Did they have problems with not having enough power? Nooo!Maiden was here? Yeaah!Did they have problems with not having enough power? Nooo!Motorhead was here? Yeaah!(2 days ago) Again, they didn’t have power problems. But we did, because we were the loudest band int he world!!!

Yeah, OK, you fixed it well!

What happened was that a generator just exploded shutting everything down.

So they started again the same song, 3-4 lyrics and powww!!! Fuck! Come on! Not again!!

Third’s time was fine, but it was obvious they were pissed off, Eric Adams lost his nerve, his joy to sing. The song was flawless, but something was missing, they were singing like waiting for something to happen. But it didn’t! Everything went fine!

Then, he started to sing Heart of steel! Only himself and the piano. Man, I must tell you at that moment, I had a feeling I have never felt before: I was part of a wall of sound, everybody was singing, note by note, word by word. I knew every word of the song, so did the rest of the crowd. Eric Adams was happy, you could see it in his eyes, he stopped singing at a moment because the whole crowd was singing, you could see on his face that he feels good being on stage in such moments…

I can tell you at that moment I had a strange feeling, I felt (don’t laugh or smile) tears in my eyes, it was something unbelievable, effectively a wall of sound, every single voice in the audience was singing…you need to be there to understand…

For a band that was never to Romania that was huge, that was wonderful.

At one moment, Joey DeMaio remained on stage and…started to speak Romanian. Not that classic I love you Romania, but like 15 minutes of speaking Romanian! Damn, Romanian is not an easy language! I know they were telling him in his ears what to say, but this guy pronounced it word by word! For 15 minutes!

I remember at one moment a guy in front of me screamed to the stage something like, My man, you are Romanian, man!! and everybody started to laugh there. It was mad, this guy actually worked for the show here, he made his homework! Looking on the back of my tshirt, he probably had the same speech in Finland, Norway and Germany! Now, that’s a dare to learn the speech in many languages that you don’t know, for 15 minutes! I know he is Italian and probably Romanian comes easier on him, if he actually speaks Italian, but that was an effort I appreciated!

As other observations, they gave a guitar to a guy they picked from the audience and asked them to play on stage with them they played together a song, then they signed the guitar, had a couple of sexist moments inviting girls on stage and behind the stage, but OK, it’s part of the show, I understand that.

I’ve got home at 3AM, tired but happy, today my throat hurts when I speak, but I am really happy I was there, for me it meant a lot, I have waited this for 15 years and now I was there. I wish they would have played more, more hits, cutting those moments with the guitar given to the guy and the ladies, and just play a few songs more, but hey, a show’s a show!

I can tell you now I feel happy and content…

I have seen Manowar live! Now I will be waiting for Satriani, I guess…

Later edit: I have found a couple of videos from yesterday night:

and Heart of steel

PS: 2 days ago Santana played in the same festival and 3 days ago, Motorhead

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So I have this Accept compilation CD in my car and I keep on listening a few songs on my way home or from home. I was curious about a few things so, reading on Wikipedia about the history of Accept, I found that the song I’m a rebel was initially composed for ACDC. Hmm…

Even more curious, I wanted to know what was the relationship between ACDC and Accept, because one of the songs I like the most from their discography, Hard attack, seems like made for ACDC. Even the way the guitar is being played makes me think of ACDC. Actually I have always seen Accept as being ACDC on steroids so…

Well, coming back to I’m a rebel, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

“I’m a Rebel” is an unreleased song written by Angus and Malcolm Young’s older brother, Alex Young, and recorded on 15 September 1976, during sessions outside Albert Productions without George Young and Harry Vanda. Reportedly, Bon Scott was very drunk when the song was recorded. The recording remains in Albert Productions vaults. In 1980 the German heavy metal group Accept covered it and the original is said to be close to Accept’s version.

Anyway, honestly I couldn’t see ACDC on this song, but man I would hear them on Hard attack…

So, here’s Accept version of I’m a rebel

UDO’s version, meaner, I’d say

And here’s Hard attack…

Now, tell me if you wouldn’t see Brian Johnson on the chorus of this one…Even the guitar screams ACDC…

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