I’ve left this blog alone for a while because I feel like artistry and punditry shouldn’t come from the same place, but I’d like to chime in here as someone who is actually affected by this whole Spotify issue.

First off, I am a paid premium subscriber to their service and absolutely love it. This is definitely the beginning of the end for tangible musical product. Once they have literally everything ever legally recorded on there, what use will your iTunes library, CDs, etc have? I think it’s the next logical step to find middle ground between the consumers who want everything to be immediate and for little or no money, and for the people who provide the product (music), who need consumer support in order to be sustainable. Of course, there is still some evolving and adapting to do. I’m sure that as this method of consumption grows in popularity, there will be more services like Spotify who make it even more simple to use, add more features and integrate more social networking, and as that grows, I’m sure there will be more money to split up to the people who actually provide the content (a single stream currently earns you something like three thousandths of a cent).

Having said that, I’m going to stand up for Century Media in this case.

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I went and saw Watain here in LA a couple weeks ago. I’m not a fan, but my girlfriend loves them and bought the tickets like two months in advance. Even though their music doesn’t do a whole lot for me, I have to admit they put on an excellent show. The stage was all gussied up with rotting, stinky cow heads, burning crosses (I was actually surprised you can do this in a post Great White world), and like 483 lit candles. According to some others I’ve spoken with, they were all rubbed down in some kind of animal blood as well (imagine that pre-show ritual!). This certainly made for some eye candy while sitting through an hour of songs I don’t know at all. As my mind drifted off throughout the set I pondered many things in regards to this band’s appeal, or at least this kind of entertainment in general. In fact, to call it “entertainment” is probably selling some of these fans’ dedication short. There are people who are really down with this shit.

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It’s interesting how small the world becomes after you’ve been around it a few times. This is becoming the case for me in North America. Intronaut just finished what might be our seventh or eighth go ‘round of the US and Canada, and I’m really noticing a change in my perspective in the traveling aspect of touring. 3,000 miles away from home doesn’t feel as far as it used to. The roads, clubs, and people are all so familiar at this point that I might as well be at home in Los Angeles.

On the last tour I thought it would be interesting to write a little something about each of my favorite and least favorite drives that we have made over and over again. I do a lot of driving on tour, mostly because I get car sick if I don’t, but also because I enjoy taking in the scenery. That being said, I also have to take in plenty of dull scenery  with the good. And before I come off as too much of a hater, I should say that there is beauty to be found in just about every part of our country, but sometimes we’re a little too tired and cranky to let ourselves see it. Enjoy….

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Sometimes, I am utterly amazed that the human race has survived this long. Like, how is it that everyone is able to remember to turn their stoves off? Or not walk into sharp pointy objects on the street? Sure, there are some smart people out there, but I think that by and large we’ve been very successful at creating a society that protects us all from dying of flat out stupidity.

Proposition 19 was voted down here in California last week. Something like 56% of voters decided against the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, for the purpose of taxing and regulating it.

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Do you ever think about how much you might misunderstand about some of the music you listen to? Specifically in the lyric department. Like, once you realize what a band is all about, it completely changes your perception of them? What if you stumbled upon some information revealing that AC/DC’s drink/fight/fuck lyrics were actually just metaphors for some deep theological debate?

I wouldn’t normally use this blog to throw out some unsolicited information on my band, but I feel like by not correcting some things I’ve seen, we’d be misrepresenting ourselves. I’ve read a couple reviews that are basically praising Intronaut for being total stoners, and applauding the title of our new record, Valley of Smoke, as some kind of monument for stoners everywhere. It’s true that some of us smoke pot, but I’d just like to set everyone straight and let you know that the title has absolutely nothing to do with weed or smoking anything at all.

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When I was in the tenth grade, back in 1997, someone in my school’s administration decided to lump me in with the 30 or so fuck-ups, or, sorry, “at-risk” group of kids. My grades weren’t terrible, and I didn’t really get into trouble or use drugs that much. However, I did wear shirts from bands like Cannibal Corpse and Anal Cunt just about every day, so I suppose they were justified in thinking that I had emotional problems. I never complained though, because once a week I got to skip class and go to some special room with my fellow flunkies and have what I can only assume is the equivalent to an AA meeting. It was interesting to hear these kids talk about smoking crack, the pleasures of meth, and beating people up over bad weed deals. I don’t think I ever had what it takes to lose myself to substance abuse, but if I did, I’m sure this helped me stay on a positive course. Sometimes we’d have guest speakers come in to these meetings. There are two that I remember most vividly. One being Robert Downey Jr., who was presumably there as part of some community service he had to do. The other was some woman who had a lengthy discussion with us on how marijuana will never be legalized in our lifetime.

That woman is either dead or choking on her own foot now, because in November, California will be voting on proposition 19. If passed, it will legalize marijuana for recreational use in our state.

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Now, here’s a candid look into the decadent and debaucherous life of a working musician: it’s 10pm on Friday night and I’m sitting in my stepdad’s home office, getting all the business-y crap out of the way for our tour that starts in six days. I always come here to print out everything we’ll need for the trip (hey, free paper and toner) like itineraries, immigration stuff, and the bane of my entire fucking existence, roadscans. For all you normal people out there who are lucky enough to never have to deal with these things, they are these sheets you have to fill out at each show on tour to track how many CD’s and LP’s you’re selling so they can count toward Soundscan, which dictates how big and bad you are in the eyes of people who care how many records you sell. Anyway, you have to fill out all this crap and have a venue representative sign it, and then fax them all in by 9am each Thursday morning or else you get guilt tripped by the label (fuck you, Jon Hughes!!!!). I know it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of work, but getting someone to sign something and looking for a fax machine totally sucks when it’s 1 a.m. and you’d rather just be hanging out or whatever.

Anyway, I just discovered and downloaded this app for my phone that takes a photo of a document, turns it into a PDF, and either emails or faxes it to wherever you want it to go. This will put an end to so much of my stress on tour. I haven’t felt affected by any technological breakthroughs this greatly since Intronaut started touring in 2006. At this point, touring in the pre-cell phone and email age seems so impossible to me even though I did live through some of that.

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Being someone who is kind of stuck in their own little bubble most of the time, I tend to forget how ridiculous the outside world can be. Since my teen years, I’ve been disgusted, yet morbidly fascinated with mainstream culture. It’s like a flaming car wreck, for lack of a better analogy. I can’t watch any kind of television without feeling like I can see right through it, and being offended that so many people’s lives in one way or another revolve around corporate-funded programming, whether it’s for entertainment or information. I lost interest in owning a television years ago.

Anyway, the most recent offender is a show called “America’s Got Talent.” Have you SEEN this shit? It should be called “America Gets Told What To Think.” Never before have I been so compelled to stick needles into my eyeballs, take a shit on a studio audience’s collective head, and leap face first off a bridge all at once. This is the very epitome of mainstream media programming minds to reject anything outside their comfort zone. Here I am trying to get a little innocent bro time with my stepdad over the weekend (this actually happened a couple months ago), getting riled up enough to, uh, write a blog entry on Metalsucks.net.

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Have you guys heard about this sweet ass fest happening in LA next month? Goatsnake, Animosity-lineup Corrosion Of Conformity, From Ashes Rise, Repulsion, Trap Them, Coliseum, and like 20 more rad bands for FREE, thanks to corporate sponsor Converse. Unfortunately, I will be on tour at the time, but if I was around I’d totally be at this. Goatsnake are the creators of at least six or seven of my favorite heavy riffs ever, Repulsion are like the AC/DC of grind, and even I would most likely be on board with pretending to care about the COC/Animosity thing (Eye For An Eye was way better, in my opinion). I’d probably even get drunk enough to blindly accept that a band like From Ashes Rise are playing a corporate-sponsored “event” like this. If something like this went down in their heyday, I can’t even imagine what the repercussions would be from their ultra-punk fans. I mean sure, I guess Converse All Stars are part of the punk rock non-conformity uniform, but it’s still (unless there’s something I don’t know) a corporation taking advantage of overseas cheap labor so they can make a larger profit off of “subcultures” they’re marketing to (see: this fest’s attendees).

Times must be tough for aging punk bands, where they can only make real money when sponsored by shoe or car companies. Sarcasm aside, I know that times are tough for all bands, and that is why these free, corporate-sponsored shows are starting to pop up more and more. At first, it was cute that Scion would fly bands out to LA every couple months and pay them a few grand to play a show. Lots of us are unemployed, so it’s nice to get a show for free once in a while. Now, the Scion Fest is an annual thing, their shows in L.A. happen every other month, and I’d be willing to bet that this won’t be the last we hear of Converse sponsoring “A free event that honors fans and musicians of ‘heavy music’ of all ages.”

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A few weeks ago I asked you guys for help with naming a new band I started with my good pals in National Sunday Law, and the response was literally overwhelming. Thanks so much to everyone who replied! Some were good, some were hilariously bad, and some were just hilarious. We ended up debating for another month, and decided on the name Graviton (not Gravitron, as I just discovered MS had reported (smoke weed)) [We've since fixed it! Sorry.  -Ed.], which was inspired by MS reader Nate’s suggestion of Hadron. Thanks for turning us onto string theory as a band theme, Nate! Email me at sachadunable [at] gmail [dot] com with your address and I’ll be sure to send you all kinds of crap.

Honorable mention should definitely go to reader Dave B, who provided such gems as Hella Smelly Belly, GuhGuhGuts, Sweatpants Surprise, and Don’t Injure Car Keys (D.I.C.K.). I don’t know you Dave, but I know we’d get along. Send me your address for some crap as well.

Anyhow, we’ve posted two full Graviton songs for you to check out on our Myspace, Bandcamp, Twitter, and if you’re too lazy to open a new window and require colorful moving pictures along with your music, Youtube:

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I’ve always been a crappy band namer. I’m crappy at naming anything, really. I come from a long line of people who were bad namers as well. My parents named me Sacha for fuck’s sake. We have absolutely no Russian in our gene pool. My mom already had a cat named Sacha when I was born. She either really liked the name, or just wasn’t creative enough to think of something else to call her first-born child. Thanks to her, I was constantly asked by my peers if I knew that “Sacha is a girl’s name,” which probably led to me getting into heavy metal, which most definitely led to me eventually writing this blog entry for MetalSucks. So yeah, thanks Mom.

Back to the band name thing. Yeah, I suck at it. I’ve never named a single band I’ve ever been in. God damn it if I haven’t tried, though. And god damn it if it isn’t the most pathetic, embarrassing, and unnecessarily vulnerable experience a group of musicians will ever put themselves through. You spend all week thinking of a name you believe to be unique, and to have meaning, then present it at rehearsal the next day only to have it written off after 15 seconds of consideration with a “nah, man…” while everyone stares away at the ground and/or quickly changes the subject.

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“Why would you do a Raddest Teeth In Metal list? I mean, who thinks about that stuff? Isn’t this kind of lame?”

Yes it is! Let’s do this! [Perhaps our article on Ben Falgoust's chompers subliminally inspired him. -Ed.]

5th place – The douchebag singer from that vampire band

I’m almost ashamed to admit that this guy was the inspiration for this blog entry (and I won’t even give them the extra google search result by printing his or his band’s name here), but will you just look at those pearly whites? Before mommy and daddy bought him his first rackmount auto-tune processor and showered him with enough love and self-confidence to make such embarrassing music, they must have spent a fortune on braces and regular dental visits. At least he might make up for his band’s crimes against humanity’s eardrums by promoting good dental hygiene to the 5th graders who make up his fanbase.

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I’m not generally one to say negative things about other bands and the choices they make (publicly, at least), but I feel that this really deserves some attention. I can only hope that young metal musicians who read this site can learn from someone else’s mistakes and hopefully one day make the metal world a little less embarrassing to be a part of.

A harsh reality of being in a band, or making music, is that some people won’t like it. ESPECIALLY in the heavy metal world, where people are almost unreasonably opinionated. What other type of music has the kind of audience who heckle a band they don’t like at a show, or argue for days in the comments section of an internet blog about why a certain band sucks? Once you put your music out there to be heard, you are, without a doubt, going to get some negative feedback. The way you handle it, however, is going to determine what kind of longevity your band will ultimately have.

I’m not a fighter at all, so I can’t really speak from experience on when violence is justified, but I know that a relatively meaningless heckling incident is not it. If you consider yourself a professional, you should act like one and think about how your actions affect the outside world’s perception of you and your band. I can think of one particular show as a perfect example of how to and how not to handle yourself in a situation like this.

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I don’t know what it is, but ever since I was a young guy I’ve typically had an aversion to trends, especially in music. Going to punk shows during my high school years, I’d laugh to myself at all the kids with the same spiky hair and leather jackets, who were obviously into the fashion or “scene” aspect of the music, rather than the music itself (of which, I’ll admit, I’m somewhat embarrassed to have been such a purist). More than a decade later, I haven’t really changed at all. I can’t help but write off many new bands these days, whether it’s a retro-thrash band named after an old Anthrax song, a long winded “post-metal” band with nautical themes, a bubble-lettered stoner rock band, a flat-brimmed nu-deth-shuggah band, or, quite possibly the most hilarious of them all, any black metal band still wearing corpsepaint that isn’t Immortal. All of this stuff comes off as tired and derivative to me, and with any style of music that becomes trendy, the posing is just too obvious.

But, I’m not here today to talk shit on popular bands. I’m here to talk to you all about a once relevant subgenre of music known as power metal, that couldn’t be further from “cool” right now. A friend of mine once referred to power metal as “the new punk rock” as if to say that at least playing punk music these days will get you laid. If someone is playing power metal, it’s probably because they are 100% down with that shit, regardless of how silly they may look to the rest of the world. And that, I have nothing but respect for.

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I understand that the music industry as we’ve known it is in somewhat of a bind. The ease of “illegal” downloading coupled with a crappy economy has cut off much of the flow of income a record label is built to generate. In this position, any sensible business would find a way to adapt in order to survive.

Last week I read about a certain metal label trying out something called a 360 deal, where instead of mainly collecting revenue from record sales or other intellectual property rights (publishing, licensing, etc.), the record label takes an agreed-upon cut of merchandise, concert ticket sales, and I suppose just about anything else having to do with the band. Actually I’m sure deals like this already existed, but this label got even more “WTF” with it and announced they would be giving this new band’s album out as a free download. I honestly think this is a great idea. Giving away the music for free since it holds little value to consumers, then sending the band on tour and collecting a decent percentage off nightly guarantees and t-shirt sales since people still pay full price for those – going where the money is. Sure, it’s a business.

What confuses me is how any band would be ok with this. They signed to a record label who isn’t actually putting out or distributing a record. They’re promoting intangible recorded material so that there’s a reason for the band to tour and sell stuff for them, while the band makes even less money on the things they would have been sustaining themselves on in an old school record deal. So, why do you need a record label then?

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Hey all, in case we didn’t already cram this news down your throat over the past month, Intronaut went to India this past weekend to perform at two dates of the Great Indian Rock Festival, put on by India’s biggest rock/metal magazine Rock Street Journal. Here’s a little recap.

I think one of the most amazing things about this trip is that it actually happened. Just days before we were scheduled to fly out, we still weren’t sure if our visas were going to arrive in time. They showed up literally the morning before our flight, which relieved us, because now we wouldn’t be wasting thousands and thousands of someone else’s dollars. We flew out Thursday morning from L.A. to Newark, which is about five hours, and then to Delhi, which is like fourteen hours. I think that if you looked at a globe, Delhi is literally on the other side of the planet from Los Angeles. We spent like twenty something hours on travel each way. Brutal, since we’d be there for only three days. Obviously we took a shitload of xanax and passed out hard.

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Hey all, its been a while since I’ve updated this blog. We’ve been super busy over the past few months, most recently with the tour we just finished with Mastodon and Kylesa. This was without a doubt one of the most awesome tours we have ever been a part of. I’d like to publicly thank everyone in Mastodon and their crew for going out of their way to be helpful and make us feel welcome. It’s nice to see that all the success hasn’t jaded you guys. It was also a pleasure to meet and bro down with Kylesa for five weeks. I hope we can all do this again some time.

Here are some highlights:

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I greet you Metalsucks readers this week with a somewhat melancholy blog entry, as I am here to announce the sale of one of my favorite guitars ever. I bought this Gibson L6-S a little more than a year ago and pretty much fell in love with it. It has an all maple body and neck, which means a brighter attack than the usual mahogany that most Gibsons have. This is also one of the most comfortable guitars I’ve ever played. This thing has been my main guitar since I bought it, meaning it’s been played at probably a hundred Intronaut shows, and was the guitar used on our last record.
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Having an outlet through a prominent web media site like metalsucks.net is a blessing in so many ways. It took a while for me to realize, but honestly having my shitty ideas read by thousands of shitty people is a power that I should harness and use to project something positive onto the metal scene. Since Metallica haven’t called me about ghost writing their next album yet, I figure I should still try to do some good for the heavy music community and turn you people on to some bands who don’t have a label buying ad space on Metalsucks. Here is a list of bands I am angry at the public for not liking:

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In the past while on tour, I’ve encountered many special things that I regret not having a video camera around to document. Last summer, we did have the foresight to bring one along, and it was totally worth it. We ended up whittling down close to six hours of footage into a ten minute “rockumentary” of that particular tour. However, some of the people we filmed along the way deserved to be seen in their fully candid, unedited glory, and here’s a particular character I’d like to share with you all.

We arrived to the show in Orlando, FL early enough to hang with the daytime locals at the bar we were playing. Not long after we sat down, this dude comes in announcing that he only has one dollar, but needs a beer. He got it, and proceeded to infiltrate our little clique, dazzling us with his sloppy redneck wit. I grabbed the video camera and let it roll.

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