Here’s about fifty photos I took of Swedish Melodic Viking Death Metal band, Amon Amarth as they played Irving Plaza last night. I can only recall one or two other concerts in my life where the crowd was as frenzied and pumped as last evening. The band seemed pretty amused and appreciative of the sheer amount of enthusiasm jammed into the club and they certainly know how to work a crowd. They are fucking hilarious, kick-ass metal dudes and their sound is just killer. They even drank booze from animal horns. I’m psyched to see them again someday.

Videos like this one are one of the big reasons why its a bit surreal to me that Giuliani is getting any attention, period, in his bid to be President.

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That’s “America’s Mayor”, a petty, brutish and tyrannical, corrupt brat. When people challenge him, he resorts to schoolyard taunts and insults. He’s a piece of shit, but apparently, mentioning 9/11 and terrorism in nearly every sentence you speak can get you pretty far.

[Link to video]

Lately, I’ve been going apeshit-overkill with concerts. I blame the internet—it makes buying tickets a little too easy and before you know it, you’ve booked yourself for three shows in one week, which is where I’m at. As I wrote in my previous post, earlier this week, I had a horrible night seeing Kataklysm live at the Blender Theater at Gramercy, a club that I will likely never return to unless it’s something I have to go to. That place fucking blows.

However, the next evening I was at the Knitting Factory, seeing post-Sleep, Stoner Doom miracles, OM with Grails opening and it entirely redeemed the condition of my week. Grails was totally psychedelic good shit. I liked them enough that I bought two of their albums off of eMusic the next morning. OM was magnificent. It was the first time I’ve ever seen them and I had no idea that a man could wring such a thunderingly full sound out of a bass guitar. I was highly impressed and inspired. I tried to buy one of everything at their merchandise table, to the point that I had two guys scrambling through boxes looking for shirts my size. I loved it. I had passed up an earlier concert of theirs in Brooklyn, a couple days ago, figuring I’d rather just see them in Manhattan where it’s easier for me to navigate home, but in hindsight, I should have gone to both shows. It was that good.

I also really liked the Knitting Factory. the sound was great, the alcohol was comparatively reasonable in price and the place is fucking HUGE. I’d never been there before and it was a good experience for a first time. Here’s a bunch of photos of the evening, if you’d like to check them out.

Tonight, it’s Behemoth at Irving Plaza. I’m tempted to bail on it, as I’m not an especially big fan, but I did already buy tickets. I’m old though. I think two concerts, at least two days apart is looking like my limit is these geriatric times that I find myself in.

I caught Norwegian Black/Viking/Progressive Metal band, Enslaved at BB Kings last night. The night was a total fucking wash until the they came on. One of the opening acts, The Agonist, has to one of the most depressingly shitty, pretentious, weak-ass bands I’ve ever seen live. Fucking shit generic sound, prancing around the stage and swinging their guitars around like total douchebags. It was embarrassing to just be there in their presence while they played. At least the band name was appropriate, since it was agonizing to suffer through their set. They need to retire, shoot themselves or whatever—just go away.

Another opening act, Arsis had a pretty good sound, but their bass player kept weirding me out. First off, the guy looked to be wearing woman’s jeans, which was fairly creepy. Second, every time before the band kicked into a song, he spent way to much time arranging his hair to hang in the appropriate Metal style. Third, he wasn’t a particularly great bassist and he’s got this huge six string, showing it off, posing and tapping the strings over the top of the neck with his right hand, something that from what I saw from his finger positioning etc., would pretty much sound like drivel, but sure did look spiffy. Still, they were a fuckload better than The Agonist.

Enslaved was awesome. Once they came on the night went from being a rip-off, to a good time. I have all of Enslaved’s albums and while I really liked them, never counted them in my top list of bands. After seeing them live, my impression of them is greatly raised. They sound fucking great. I took a good amount of photos and posted them to my Flickr stream for all to see.

Last night. I caught Boris, one of my all-time favorite Drone Doom bands, live at the Bowery Ballroom with Michio Kurihara. Without a doubt, it was one of the best concerts I have been to in a good long while. Boris has a massive sound live. My ear filters were put to the test and yet I still went to bed with my ears ringing. I’d never been to the Bowery Ballroom before. It’s a pretty nice place. I spent perhaps a little too much time in the bar downstairs, skipping the opening acts that I didn’t give a fuck about in favor of a good number of Stellas. I ended up with a greasy, green and morbid motherfucker of a hangover this morning because of it. Still, I had a crazy good time head-banging in the middle of a bunch of posers who have no clue about Doom Metal. I love Boris.

As usual, I took a ridiculous amount of photos and uploaded them to a Flickr set. Feel free to check them out.

While I was in San Francisco last week, post Hawaii, I went out to a club in the mission district to see the Japanese Punk/Comic/Costume band Peelander-Z one evening. After a couple lame-ass and tired bands finished their sets and the main act went on stage in their costumes, I took a mess of photos of what was a decidedly rowdy concert. Peelander-Z are hilarious and judging from the exuberant and violent actions of the crowd at the club, everyone loves them.

After I got back to New York, I hit BB Kings to see the Death Metal band, Daath and Swedish Black Metal bands, Naglfar and Dark Funeral. I noticed that there was more than a healthy population of South American guys under five feet in height and wearing corpsepaint in the crowd. I liked Daath a lot. I have a few Naglfar albums, which I think are pretty good, but for their first American show, they were fairly underwhelming. Adequate, would be a good descriptor. Dark Funeral was interesting to see live. They’re pretty old and fat for corpsepaint and all the leather bondage shit they wear. They’re a good band, but they look fucking stupid. I don’t really consider them real Black Metal, more like a hybrid with Death Metal. I like them, but they’re not exactly high on my list of top bands. The whole grim and cold Black Metal act falls flat on their beer guts and their lead singer seems like a bit of a douchebag as far as stage presence goes. Still, they were good. Embarrassing looking, but good. Photos of the concert can be found here.

Tomorrow I leave New York City for a much needed vacation in Hawaii. First I’ll be flying to San Francisco and staying there overnight before heading out across the Pacific. I’ll be on one island or another for just about eight days before flying back to San Francisco for a bit and finally, returning to New York.

I intend to spend much of the time passed out on beach, wearing a grass skirt.

I’m packing my laptop and camera with me, so I’ll likely do some beach-blogging and upload a retarded amount of photos fairly regularly while I’m there.

Last night, I saw Turbonegro, one of my all-time favorite bands, perform at the Nokia Theater here in New York. I’ve never seen them live before and while I’m jaded in their favor due to being a fan, I really was pretty unprepared for exactly how truly fucking awesome they are in person. Norwegian fucking Death Punk! Hank From Hell was totally hilarious, shaking his blubber all over the place and Happy Tom is the fucking man. Easily one of the best concerts I’ve been to. Denim, lipstick, mascara and some fucking rouge.

I took almost two hundred photos that night and have uploaded them to a flickr set. Feel free to view them at your leisure.

This last Wednesday, I went to see Stoner Metal band, Alabama Thunderpussy and the Death Metal act, Obituary at B.B. King here in New York. Early in the evening, I managed to get myself fairly liquidated at an after-work Happy Hour, where I downed something like eight beers and somehow severely bruised the top of my right foot (which at this moment is all swollen and weeping for Jesus).

Once I got to the concert, I laid off the juice and managed to have a pretty good time. I was kind of underwhelmed by Alabama Thunderpussy, but I could see them being a lot better in a smaller venue. Obituary was balls-out fucking awesome. I don’t really get into too many Death Metal bands. There’s a few I like, but generally I prefer other metal genres. Still, Obituary was great, being one of the better Death Metal shows I’ve been to.

I brought my super-cool new camera with me, but I haven’t quite figured out the extremely low-light shooting techniques, so of the 200-ish shots, a little less than a hundred came out worth saving. I’ve uploaded them to a flickr set, feel free to check them out.

I’ve just returned from work and a quick trip to the supermarket for arugula and beers (awesome combo, you don’t have to tell me). As I was walking home from the store in my neighborhood (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn), I noticed by a woman walking her poodle down the street in the opposite direction from me.

As I came closer, I saw some small, stick-like thing hanging out of the dog’s mouth. From a distance, my first thought was, “That’s a cigarette!”, but I have shit vision, even with contacts. But, sure enough, as the dog came closer I distinctly saw an unlit cigarette poking out of it’s mouth. The death-stick was whole, slightly damp in some parts, but complete and smokable.

The owner, who was walking slightly ahead of the poodle, seemed wholly oblivious as I can only assume she wouldn’t condone her pet’s addictive habit. My guess is the dog picked it up off the street, managing by coincidence to get it oriented correctly, filter-first and at the perfect smoking angle. The poodle really looked like he was just trying to get a light for it’s smoke. I would have obliged, had I been packing matches.