We own the mountains!

I'm glad I have a lifetime subscription to Field and Stream because Exhibit A and Exhibit B point are pointing eagerly at Worst Case Scenario. Hence, I will begin formulating my survival plan.

The most important thing you can do is find a future shelter. Don't pick the same one as someone else. People will not be wild about sharing. This will be your own personal cradle of civilization.

Your cradle of civilization should be deep underground, preferably encased in some kind of indestructible material that has yet to be found. Check the labels on your fat roommate's briefs (If you're reading this blog you almost certainly have one). Avoid damp areas. Mutated mushrooms will attempt to penetrate your perimeter in the wake of the holocaust. Make sure it's in walking distance from where you spend most of the time. If your location has a toilet, you've won the game. If your location has toilet paper, someone is definitely going to come beat your ass.

Once you have selected a suitable location for your cradle of civilization (or CoC), begin appropriating supplies. This ranges from everything from food to guns to prophylactics (Yes, we all want to be in charge of a desperate band of thirty pregnant women.) Learn the land around you. Memorize the location of streams, lakes forests and possible food sources such as bee hives bear caves. Be prepared to defend what is yours.

With a little luck and perseverance, you'll build a depressing shadow of civilization populated mostly by suicide. The end result should look something like this.


________________________________________________



But, in all seriousness? Fuck those people. We're letting some these people decide the fate of the world? Fuck them. The rest of the world should be racing to stop these people. Us and them the same. Not under the banner of any nation, under the banner of sanity. Under a banner that reads "You have no right to decide the fates of those outside your borders you fucking pigs." Fuck.

Hidden Gems: Japan wages crazy heavy metal war of speed

Welcome back! Feast your eyes on my new Hidden Gems section. Under this banner, I shall bring to your attention anything my attention thinks your attention should be paying attention to. Be it band, book or movie, do my best to persuade you. Boogie down.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Are you fan of speed? I'm a fan of speed. Speed is in this year and no one has more speed than Hayaino Daisuki. The super-metal trio's debut EP Headbanger's Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire straight up crackles in your hands, unfolding it's fire/hot metal chicks laden multi-puzzly-sleevebox thing. We're not talking about Origin/Braindrill/Marduk style speed here. We're talking about three grindthrashingblackpunk metalheads, Jon Chang (Discordance Axis, Gridlink), Matsubara (Mortalized) and Eric Schnee (dude, get a band), playing with enough urgent lunacy to outblast the worlds most metal drum machine. 500bpm or not.

I don't know why I love these guys so much. Maybe its because there so much love to go around so little material. At 14 minutes long, HbHCDF ends just in time to blue ball the listener, but maybe thats what keeps me coming back more more. (I was really going to write something very fucking stupid there.)

The formula is fairly textbook. Chang screeches, Schnee hammers, Matsubara shreds. Lots of bands use this formula, but lots of bands don't have Matsubara. Shame, because this dude is really awesome at guitar. He brings thrash, black metal, and dare I say it, pop, into the mix to come up with some of the catchiest, uplifting, neck wrecking riffs in the land. Chang's vocals are an aquired taste (one of my favorites), remaining consistent in his high-high register shriek. Extra point's to Schnee though for doing alot with a little. Also, in a refreshing turn of production, his kit sounds alive and breathing. (BEGONE YOU TRIGGERED, CLICKY, COMPRESSED AND SOULESS DRUMS!) In fact, the whole thing sounds like it was just tapped live off the rehearsal room floor, raw like dead carcass. Sure they teeter on the edge sometimes; the drums lose the beat for a moment or Matsubara misses one of the two million notes, but it all sounds so juicy. Juicy dead carcass.

Not much else needs to be said. Except an apology to anyone who thought this was going to be an undercover report on Japan's military resurgence. The truth is that the band is only have Japanese. The other half lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Did you know they're name translates to "I love speed?" How awesome is that.


See for yourself.

MADE OF METAL: Whiplash, tears and some kid who stinks like shit

Hey ye faithful! So I thought I'd start posting my articles from my day job here. Might make the wait between interviews with Pulitzer Prize winners more interesting. Especially because such an interview will probably never happen again. Get brutal!


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like the Black Death, Made of Metal returns once again to sow esoteric references and bouts of painful death among you all! This week's edition may be an account of a nearly two-week-old concert, but blame the University's erratic vacation schedule if you must. Pretend that you have just dug up a dusty old tome (tomes are very metal), an account of an ancient battle unearthed from the age of like, two weeks ago. Did that put you in the mood? Good. Let's get brutal.

Now before I can calmly and accurately recount the Feb. 12 massacre at the Palladium's upstairs club venue, I have a message for the lanky kid with the long hair, gray shirt (not very metal at all), braces and squeaky voice: You smell terrible. I've had to stand next to many offensive odors in my metal journey and you were by far the worst. You smelled like a trashcan full of used baby diapers dipped in a deep fryer. You smelled so bad you made me want to give up my killer spot in the front row. To semi-quote my favorite publication: if you don't hate your own smell, you hate no smell. You were also very annoying. You annoyed me. You annoyed the people around you and you annoyed the bands. Please don't come to any more shows. Some people are trying to enjoy their lives. On to the music.

Swallow the Sun, Finland's most depressing band ever (Finland being the most depressing country ever) and my main reason for attending the concert, was up first. In preparation for STS's first North American tour, every tree in New England went bare, and the temperature dropped to nearly zero as frozen matter fell from the sky (this could also be the effect of the phenomenon humans call "winter," but I don't believe in coincidences).

The sextet's brand of lurching doom-death seemed a little out of place on a bill boasting mostly whirlwind thrash bands, but they proved more invigorating in the live arena than I had expected. Despite expressions ranging from stoic to downright grim, Swallow the Sun played like champs for the 20 or so people who had streamed into the club early. Opening up with the appropriately titled "Descending Winters," STS touched on each of their albums, even whipping out, much to my delight, two tracks from their first demo, "Out of This Gloomy Light" and the crushing "Swallow." The sound man even managed to keep that fickle ol' "suck" knob on the sound board dialed down to zero, allowing the more delicate atmospheric touches to shine through with melodies that could squeeze tears from a stone. If you haven't checked these dudes out yet, do yourself a favor.

Next up was California's Warbringer, a band whose faux-retro thrash wares I've railed on at least once before in the pages of this mysterious tome. But while I still couldn't care less for this regurgitated, one-dimensional garbage, I'm willing to divorce my aesthetic tastes from my desire to have fun in the live arena. I can't tell you the names of any songs because they are generally identical three- to four-minute blasts of Bay area-derived classic thrash metal, but I can tell you that it makes for a heck of a live show. All this does not, however, excuse them for helping to resurrect the most one-dimensional sound in the history of metal.

The final act for the night was Sweden's hyper-technical/progressive/death-thrash veterans Darkane. Though I only own one of their albums, Layers of Lies, I thought I knew enough of their other "hits" to maintain a generally solid grasp of the set. My degree of preparation turned out to be completely irrelevant, though, because somehow the sound man lost control of that devilish "suck" knob. That thing must have been set to the power of 10 because I'm pretty sure that the guitars and lead mic weren't even on when the playing started. After a song or two, this situation was somewhat rectified with a nondescript buzzing heard from the amps. At one point, master shredder Klas Ideberg yelled a slew of profanities at the soundman, prompting him to turn said nondescript buzz way up. This made for a killer live mix consisting of really loud drums and a massive buzzing noise. Fortunately, through some divine miracle the sound was almost perfect for my favorite Darkane thrashterpiece, "Secondary Effects."

I left the Palladium partially deaf, heavily bruised, aching and greedily clutching Darkane guitarist Christofer Malmstrom's pick. A night of true brutality.


Originally published in Just Arts.

'Underworld' synopsis: Stab Sandwich

It's no secret that the Oscars, our nation's most prestigious, pretentious and expensive awards, are floundering. Viewership hits a new low every year, as have the costs of advertising slots during the three hour-plus ceremony; they've cycled through multiple potential hosts (arriving at not-so-superstar Hugh Jackman), and worst of all, they've become predictable. All of the top films have had an award locked down since they debuted as far back as June. These days, you can spot an Oscar winner a mile away. The ingredients are pretty simple: Take two parts sensitive subject matter (Nazis, gay rights, global warming), one part big-name actor (DiCaprio, Winslett, Penn), sprinkle household-name director, bake at 350 degrees, and serve it up to a society whose members' tastes are well known. I say we spice up the Oscars with some snazzy new categories, ones that might actually stir up some controversy among the voters.

So, without further ado I submit for "Most Entertaining Viewing Experience": Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

By traditional standards of good taste, character development, convincing performance, emotional attachment and plot, it was a terrible movie. Simply awful. I imagine the creative process for this film went something like this:

Writer Alan: Well, the script is due tomorrow. What've we got?

Writer Bernard: Nothing really. We have like half a page of notes, and I can't read your handwriting. It's more than we had for the other two Underworld movies, but I think we should turn in at least a page this time. I need my Christmas bonus to pay child support.

Writer Alan: What about that script we wrote at the meth party? You remember the one. It was a mix of Interview with a Vampire, Teen Wolf, Braveheart, The Rock and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Writer Bernard: Brilliant! It practically writes itself! Cut and paste some dialogue from some other movies. Don't rip anything too good. We can't have anyone picking up on our evil scheme. I'm going to go do drugs in the bathroom. When I come back we're gonna party so get those pants off.

Now, fortunately for the degenerates at Screen Gems, the traditional elements of a "good" movie aren't always what viewers are looking for, and therein lies the strength of Underworld. It's not that it's so bad it's funny; it's more like the writers, knowing full well they had no chance of winning any critical acclaim, decided to throw everything into the pot and hope the end result would be outrageous enough to entertain and entice oddball moviegoers. The result? The only film of 2009 (and perhaps ever) to feature a horde of charging werewolves attempting to overtake a castle held by an elite caste of vampire rulers. And as a fan of werewolves, swordplay and acts of impalement, I was willing to see Underworld at the behest of two friends with similar tastes. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed myself.

If nothing else, Underworld delivers in the impalement category with flying colors. Everyone gets stabbed. Everyone. Shit, you can't go 10 minutes in this movie without one of the characters getting stuck with a sharp object, be it a sword, spear, arrow, dagger, ballista or spinning whirly blade. Lead werewolf Michael Sheen alone should get an Oscar for "Most Stab Wounds Received in a Feature Film." One of the scenes even features a kind of impalement obstacle course as a group of canine rebels attempt to flee from their vampiric captors under heavy spear-fire. Fuck yeah

There's plenty here for fans of dismemberment as well, with plenty of limbs, even torsos, severed and spurting. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, all the guts and gore are spaced between some seriously unbearable bouts of dialogue, but truthfully, I was too busy laughing it up with my sidekicks to really notice or care. The strength of Underworld isn't so much the movie itself but the experience it provides the audience.

The rest of the world might not take notice, but if you want a good laugh with your friends and you've never seen a werewolf tackle a vampire off a castle wall and devour his head in midair, go see this movie.

Originally written for Just Arts.

Primordial dawning of the dark metal lord!!!!!!!

MINIONS!!!!
WELCOME AND KNEEL BEFORE THE NEW EDITION OF DAN'S MIGHTY HAMMER!!!

After starting this for class, I've been inspired to start it up again as my own personal pit of incantations, political, musical and other spells of intellectual summoning. Here, free from the shackles of my actual job and the pains of content editing and infernal spell checking, I shall cast down my words upon your eye sockets with such force that ye shall be blinded by my might. So, stay tuned and dare to breath in the blackest black darkness!!!!!! BE GONE!!!!

Podcast: Mark Feeney

Listen to my interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Feeney here

Allen Adamson talks technology

Tuesday night, marketing consultant Allen Adamson spoke to a group of students in Brandeis University’s Golding Auditorium on the topic of online marketing. Director for the New York office of the brand design and consulting firm Landor, Adamson is currently touring New England in support of his most recent book, BrandDigital, a guide to building and sustaining a commercial brand in the digital age.

Aided by PowerPoint and video clips, Adamson described for the audience the current marketing landscape. Though the digital sector has not yet become the dominant one, it has become increasingly important. He described the current situation, in which economic conditions necessitate heavy budget cuts, forcing suffering marketing departments to develop new, more efficient ways of developing and pushing products.

Fortunately, the internet has provided a venue in which there have been very efficient returns on marketing investments. The internet, Adamson told the audience, has allowed for the development of a forum in which customers communicate their complaints and compliments on a given product in massive numbers. “One of the things digital allows you to do is be a fly on the wall,” he said, describing the new consumer culture. Adamson called this phenomenon a “back yard fence mentality,” in which products are marketed by word of mouth alone, almost free from any outside influence. “The internet,” Adamson added, “is a huge digital fence.”

Adamson went on to describe the various effects the internet has had throughout the marketing and branding industry. Though the internet is a powerful new tool, it can also sink a product as fast as it promotes it. Whereas once companies performed surveys on their products as little as once a year, the current environment, one in which word of a defective product can spread ever faster, calls for round-the-clock vigilance to ensure that no complaints go unnoticed and treated. In the digital age, he continued, it’s more important for companies to listen and learn from customers. The public are now the ones who can make or break you. Realizing this, corporations have begun to explore the vast possibilities of social networking tools modeled after phenomenon like Youtube and Facebook.

One story described in the lecture detailed the online exploits of Ameriprise, an offshoot of American Express. Realizing the value of a forum in which their customers could voice their opinions, Ameriprise set up a site in which customers were encouraged to share their dreams for the future from a financial perspective. The result was two-told. Not only did the company develop its own forum for customer opinion, they created a community.

However, some companies Adamson described did not share the same foresight and suffered as a result. He offered the audience the example of the Kryptonite bike lock, a product promoted as completely secure and with a $50 price tag. Shortly after the product launch, a video surfaced on the internet of a man opening the lock by inserting the end of a pen into the keyhole. The product was a bust. “Nothing spreads faster than when you make a promise and don’t keep it,” Adamson warned. He also gave the example of Cablevision, the self-proclaimed champions of customer service, embarrassed when an internet video surfaced of one of their repair men taking a nap on the couch of a customer.

Adamson also warned that even great products are vulnerable to decline if they don’t keep pace with the technology. To illustrate the point Adamson told the story of Shreddies, a stable cereal in Canada, which was declining but was revived by viral video campaigns. The company that owned Shreddies spread on the internet videos of test subjects sampling between the original Shreddies, and the “new” Diamon Shreddies, the same square shaped cereal simply rotated into a diamond shape on the box. There was no actual change being made to the product, but customers were nonetheless thinking about the cereal in a new way.

The lecture also touched on the new need for corporations to market themselves as well. Thanks to the wide range of information available on the internet, customers can now track all of a corporation’s products and activities. Not only must products stand for something, but so now must corporations. Adamson described the recent fuss made over the company Unilever, which makes and promotes Dove soap products, and the related “True Beauty” campaign, as well as Axe products, a line often derided as being sexist.

The lecture concluded as Adamson reminded the audience that the basic principles of branding and marketing remain the same, but with the digital market comes a need for a more complete customer experience, one where “who you are becomes much more important.” A product still needs to distinguish itself. “You still need to stand for something different,” he said.