Dinosaur Snr..

Currently at work I am developing an educational resource that is requiring a lot of computer graphics. This means that for the bulk of the working day, my computer is rendering a way and is useless for everything other than writing my blog. Which means this will probably be a long post. Aren't you lucky eh?

So last week (and for the next two weeks) Marcus has been away. This has meant that I have been filling in for him in the middle room, in theory combining the music of mine and his room. It sort of worked... but I'm a little worried by some of the attitudes of some of the metal fans. Now I feel that I should point out that these are my opinions, not those of Marcus or anyone else in the club, but c'mon kids, metal has moved on. I can't believe that the most requested records were Metallica and Motley Crew (!?!). Surely the days of hair metal are well and truly over. Aren't they?

Over my set I played Masterdon, Children of Bodom, Sikth, Boy Sets Fire, Killswitch Engage, Rage Against The Machine, System Of A Down, AFI, Poison The Well, Glassjaw, Dillinger Escape Plan, Coheed & Cambria, Faith No More and Every Time I Die, as well as Metallica and Dragonforce (under much duress) yet I was accused of not playing any metal. So I will have to hold my hands up and admit to having no knowledge of a scene that I thought I was at least on the fringe of. Now I don't know if it was as much the fact that I was wearing a shirt and don't have long hair as to the records I was playing, but there was a definite air of hostility from some of the kids there.

Being into alternative music is the best opportunity there is when it comes to expanding your musical horizons, now more so than ever. Alternative music should encompass everything from screamo-hardcore to drum and bass and hiphop - the artists making it are all pushing the boundaries of what they are doing and are not conforming to music industry standards. They are not making cute little three minute singles for the radio to play.

I think in a way music television has a lot to answer for - the dedicated rock channels such as Scuzz and Kerrang seem to have such a limited playlist. Kerrang is the worst, continually playing pop punk novelty records in the form of Bowling For Soup, Blink 182 and Zebrahead, tired old Nu-metal or rock dinosaurs such as Guns and Roses, Metallica and Nirvana. I'm not saying that these records don't have a place, but were is the exciting new stuff? Why aren't they playing Death From Above 1979? Or Billy Talent? Or Showbread? Or Digitalism? Or The Test Icicles? Or...well I could go on

Bands like Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Greenday have become so safe and staid that they are now played on Radio 2. Now admittedly, some of this is the bands and their fans becoming older, but that last three Greenday albums haven't even come close to capturing the snotty punk drive of Welcome To Paradise or 1,000 Light Years Away. Rock music should never be safe, and it shouldn't be about selling millions of records. It should be about moving forward. Guns And Roses made one awesome record. They haven't made a great one since, and by the looks of things, they're not going to. It's time to move on. Whilst they are not to my tastes, shouldn't we be focusing our attentions on Bullet For My Valentine, Funeral For A Friend and Trivium

Oh, and just for the record - why is it that everything with a vocal melody that doesn't have a two minute guitar solo is referred to as 'emo'?

More on that tomorrow I think. x