Porocrom’s Crappaper

Yes children, uncle Crommunist is back with another edition of…

This issue, we examine a Canadian band that is poised to take off like gangbusters. I recently had the immense pleasure of seeing these guys live as part of a beer promotion that came to my school. I got into the show for free because a friend of mine snagged me a ticket (you rule, Jeff). I had heard a bit of this band, and I wasn’t really super-excited about them, but the show changed all of that. I have been to a few rock shows in my time, but nothing I’ve ever seen or heard even comes close to the hard rockin’ show put forth by:

The Trews

My first exposure to the Trews was their single Not Ready to Go from their second album “House of Ill Fame”. It’s a pretty hard-rockin’ but straightforward song, and I wasn’t particularly impressed until I heard the second single Tired of Waiting

I am wired and fading
Looking blind and blaming
Following and trailing
Words you might be saying

I am tired of waiting,
I’m tired of waiting, I am tired

I grabbed a few tracks of theirs and was suitably impressed. They kind of sat in the back of my brain for a while until I heard they were playing at UW, so I thought I would give them a listen. My life was changed that night.

Touring on the strength of their recent disc “Den of Thieves” the Trews brought a rock show that blew away anything else I’ve seen live. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any band put that much into a live show before. I don’t know what these Nova Scotia lads are having for breakfast, but I’ll imagine their wives/girlfriends/groupies are very well satisfied. Just when you think they can’t possibly have any more energy, they bust out into a face-melting guitar solo.

Despite the fact (or perhaps in addition to it) that these guys can rock, they are incredibly skilled at what they do. Colin MacDonald has an incredible voice. It’s warm, full, throaty, and he has amazing range. For an example of what I mean, check out a song called “Hopeless”. John-Angus MacDonald has killer guitar skills as well. He busted out all the great tricks: playing between the legs, playing behind the back, rolling around on the floor. He did everything but make it sit up and beg. Not to be neglected is Sean Dalton, who threw in a great 10-minute drum solo amidst strobe lighting.

Their older stuff is a bit more provincial, but their latest release has more mainstream appeal, as evinced by the first single from that album, So She’s Leaving. I seriously recommend checking these guys out.

As is my habit, I will also discuss the opening band. Boy, a Toronto band, was mediocre, had little stage presence, and got kicked out for bringing shots on the stage. Seeing them get booted from the hall was my favourite part of their show.

Songs to Check Out

- So She’s Leaving – Stray – Confessions – Hopeless ******* OMG LISTEN TO THIS SONG – Tired of Waiting – Fleeting Trust

Yes folks, it’s time for another edition of…

This week I’ll be talking about one of my favourite “Oh yeah” bands. You know the kind of band where you hear a song on the radio and you say “Oh yeah, I remember these guys!” Bands that for whatever reason dropped off the radar, but left a legacy of great songs by which to be remembered. The band I’ve selected for your reminiscing pleasure this time is the band The Odds.

The song you will probably remember the most (if you were into alt-rock in the mid-late 90s) is the song Someone who is Cool

In natural selection I’ve avoided all detection and the tender bits underneath
All with window dressing and calculated guessing and a heart bigger than my sleeve
It was the suit that got me the gig
It was the tear that got me the girl
I’m a sheep in this wolf’s clothing
I’m a picture that I’m holding of someone who is cool

I heard that song and decided to grab up as many of their songs as I could. I was most pleasantly surprised. The music is an eclectic blend of rock and pop, and no two songs are the same, unlike some bands who subscribe very strictly to one style. They’re not overly complex or deeply musically brilliant, like Tool or the Pumpkins, but their music definitely has a quality to it that defies boredom.

In true Crommunist style, the thing that most impressed me was the quality of the lyrics. Without being overly funny, the lyrics are light-hearted and clever, even in deep and somber songs. The best example I can think of comes from the song Last Drink:

Carrying your ashes from bar to bar,
I’m in a mess, you’re in a Mason jar.
With you under my arm like a football,
I’m not ready to let go, and that is all.
You were never too big on conversation
And that hasn’t changed much since your cremation

A lot of their appeal surely comes from the nostalgia factor, but The Odds are definitely worth a look. They are easy-to-listen toe-tapping songs. Don’t expect anything prolific or life-changing, but you can’t go wrong with these guys.

Songs to check out (Numbers 1-4 were released as singles)

1. Someone who is cool
2. The Truth Untold
3. It Falls Apart
4. Eat my Brain
5. Last Drink
6. Smokescreen
7. Radios of Heaven
8. Break the Bed

A few monts ago I went to some concerts, and I promised you pictures and videos. Well, here they are. This is a BitTorrent file, to download it you need a client such as Azureus (user guide here). Then, you have to download this torrent file and open it with your client, and it will start downloading. It is 700 MB and my bandwidth sucks, so please please please leave the file open after it’s done so that other people can download from you. The file includes 65 7.2 MPEL pictures and 13 MPEG videos of Scorpions, Dio, Twisted Sister, Anthrax and Katatonia.

Update: The torrent is going down. There is currently one more leecher on it and as soon as he finishes I will stop seeding. Noone is helping me and I have uploaded about 6 GB on a 128 kbit connection. The tracker is going to be up for a week, in which time if there are no seeders I will close that too.

Back again with another concert, Scorpions this time. In Thessaloniki (not Athens now), Greece, we went to see Scorpions, and, as expected, they rocked. The pictures and videos will be included in the torrent with the Dio/Twisted Sister/Anthrax/Katatonia/Whatever concert pictures. The theatre was packed with people of all ages, and there were more hot chicks than you’d think, with far less nerds than you’d think, which is a good thing. There were even people with their kids there, and that is not a good example to set for your kids, you damn stoners.

This is their playlist:

1. New Generation
2. Love ‘em or Leave ‘em
3. Bad Boys
4. The Zoo
5. Make It Real
6. We’ll Burn the Sky
7. Deep and Dark
8. Coast to Coast
9. Holiday (long version)
10. In Trance
11. Wind of Change
12. Noone Like You
13. Loving You Sunday
14. Tease Me Please Me
15. Kottak Attack
16. Black Out
17. He’s a Woman
18. Hit Between the Eyes
19. Big City Nights

1. Coming Home
2. Still Loving You
3. Hurricane

1. Smoke Is Going Down

The lines are the songs of the two encores. New Generation, Love ‘em or Leave ‘em and Deep and Dark were from the new CD, Unbreakable, and they were quite good. They started out with heavy songs and played the ballads later on, so everyone was pumped up from the start. Klaus Meine was quite vocal, being the vocalist and all (ha. ha. ha.). He was running up and down the stage and throwing drumsticks most of the time, when he was not singing, but he wasn’t throwing them far enough so those of us who were more than a mile away had no chance of catching one, sadly.

The highlights included Kottak Attack, the drum solo by James Kottak, during which he broke a beer bottle with his head and continued playing. The beer bottle was unavailable for comment, but Kottak said “This was the best drum solo I have ever done.” or something like that. He didn’t say it to me, so I’m just guessing.

I didn’t know the first few songs, so I just nodded along until they got to the known stuff. Also, I took a picture of the setlist before the concert started and I knew all the songs beforehand, so I shouted each song’s name before they sang it as if I was requesting it. I bet the people in front of me thought that the Scorpions were my bitches, playing every song I asked or something. I especially liked the part where Holiday started, but Klaus stopped before the chorus and wouldn’t sing it before making us sing some silly stuff. We played along and then he went “Longing for the sun!”, at which point we all went crazy and started jumping up and down and shitting our pants.

They left before the first encore, but we were shouting at them to come back because we had seen the setlist and knew there were more songs and they couldn’t play that trick on us so they should come back and sing Coming Home now. Bitches.

This is the end of this review, the rest of it was quite uneventful. All you can do now is wait for the videos and pictures, which, incidentally, are much better than the Dio ones, because I discovered the magic that is ISO 400. That’ll be in August. Until then, keep checking up on the site.

Here we are again, after the Dio/Twisted Sister/Anthrax/Katatonia/(almost) Zyklon concert. Zyklon didn’t get to play because a member of the band got injured (I don’t know which one), so I have no idea what they were like, but I bet they were really good. Katatonia were great, they had some good songs, I shall be listening to them more in the near future. Anthrax I wasn’t all that familiar with, they were OK I guess. Twisted Sister were also good, if a bit gay. And now, to the band I went to the concert for.

DIO

Unfortunately, the English language (or any other language for that matter) lacks the words to describe how much Dio rocked. Therefore, I have perforce invented my own language to write this review in, most of the words of which mean “awesome” but in a much higher degree. Also unfortunately, noone of you would understand this language if I wrote in it, because it is newly invented (duh), and also I have not invented writing for Porolanguage yet.

I know I promised a review, and I don’t want to let you down like a certain band that rhymes with Miron Aiden did by not singing a song that rhymes with Dear of the Fark. Instead, we at Porocrom shall provide you with a torrent of pictures and videos of the concert, including videos of Dio singing Egypt, Man on the Silver Mountain and Holy Diver. You can expect the torrent in September, because we don’t have the resources at the moment.

Unfortunately, Ronnie James Dio was unavailable for comment because he left immediately after the concert, and we could not get a statement for the readers of Porocrom (both of them). Oh well, maybe we’ll get something from Scorpions.