April 24th

Terror is a band from Las Angelos California formed in 2002. The original line up was Scott Vogel on Vocals, Carl Schwartz on bass, Frank Novinec on guitar, Doug Weber on rhythm guitar and Nick Jett on drums. They are one of my favourite bands, they are not, unlike a lot of bands, letting there fame get to there heads. I went to see them last week and there was a barricade blocking anyone from being able to sing along or even get close to the bands. Terror was the only band who mentioned the fact that they disliked it. They are a true hardcore band, they feed off the energy of there fans. They do not act like they are hot shots or anything of the sort. They interact with the crowd before and after there set. Another band that had played that night is Emmure. They in my opinion have let there fame get to their heads. I remember three years ago seeing them play in Oshawa, at the Dungeon. They were nice guys then, they interacted with the crowd, set up there own stuff etc... But when I saw them last week, the vocalist sat with his arms crossed, giving the impression that he thought he was better than all. Before and after the set, the band was nowhere to be found. I just love how Terror, even after being around for so long still consider themselves just like everyone else there. After the show, on my way home I decided to stop for a slice of pizza and I saw the vocalist of Terror there alone just like a normal person. I talked to him for a while and he was very down to earth, talking about his influences and how some bands just let it get to there heads. After leaving Pizza Pizza I saw the vocalist of Emmure, with a girl, I said: `` you guys played a good set! `` He shrugged it off and not even a thank you.

Agnostic Front

Agnostic Front were one of the first bands to play hardcore music. They formed in New York in 1980, by Vinnie stigma (guitar), Diego cruz (Bass), Rob Krekus (drums) and John Watson on vocals. Soon after they parted ways with Rob and replaced him with Ray Barbieri. John also left the band soon after there forming and was replaced by Roger Mirret who is still there vocalist to this day. Their first E.P, United Blood was released in 1983 on an indie label. This release is now considered a collectors item because so little were printed. There second release, Victim in Pain (1984) is considered as one of the starting albums of New York hardcore. In 1986 they released there third album, Cause for Alarm. This is the album where you start to hear there heavy thrash influence, some of there original fans were not too happy. Due to the fact that they were mostly punk kids, metal and punk kids have never gotten along. In 1987 Roger Miret was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to do 4 years. The band continued without him, they went on a tour in Europe. When he was released in 1992 they recorded One voice. Soon after the release of this album the band called it quits. But in 1997 Roger Miret and Vinnie Stigma decided to give it another try. They recruited Jimmy Coletti on drums and Rob Kabula on bass. They signed to Epitaph records at this time. They released a few albums, but none made a very big success. Then in 2005 they released Another Voice, which was a disappointment to a lot of there fans. They seemed to have tried and follow the trend of ``tough guy`` hardcore of the time. Miret`s vocals were less hardcore/punk and more new wave hardcore. After this album, they decided to go back to their roots. In 2007 they released Warriors, which did very well. They have not yet recorded anything since, but they have been touring extensively.

Wisdom in Chains

Wisdom in Chains is a band formed of members from America and Holland. Maarten, a guitarist from Holland in the band Daredevil, called Mad Joe Black and Richie, who are a vocalist and a drummer from an American band Krutch, to start a band. This occurred in 2002, that year Daredevil went on a European tour and Joe and Richie joined them. On this tour they wrote a lot of music, Maarten then decided to come to America to record an album, this album was self-titled and was only released on vinyl. From 2002-2005 they only played one show due to the fact that Maarten lived in Holland. In 2005 Marteen decided to move to America. Shortly after moving to the States, they released there second album on Gangstyle records, this album was called Die Young. In 2006 they released there third album Vigilante Saint again on Gangstyle records. In 2007 they got there break, Eulogy records signed them on. Their first release with Eulogy was a re-issue of Die Young which included 4 bonus tracks 2 of which were live. Then they released there biggest selling album in the fall of 2007 titled Class War. This album did very well for the genre of music they play. In late 2007 they released a split with a band Called barricade. Since then they have yet to release another album. Wisdom in chains still plays shows and is very active. As a matter of fact they are playing in Toronto at the Wreckroom on May 2nd with another one of my favourite bands Madball. I believe that Wisdom in Chains are a very good band and deserve more recognition in the hardcore scene. Their lyrics are very deep and talk about the realities of the world, that it isn’t really a nice place to be in, and that you have to keep working hard to help your friends, family and those you hold close to your heart.

Liferuiner

Liferuiner is a band from Toronto Ontario. They were introduced to me by my old friend Kevin. I started liking them a lot right then, seeing as they were a straight edge band and at the time I myself was straight edge. I could really relate to the lyrics. I saw them live for the first time Easter weekend 2007 with another band from Ontario, Body break, and another band I used to really like, Emmure. I really enjoyed there set, Jonny, there vocalist, really hyped up the crowd and knew how to put on a good show. It was probably one of my favourite shows. After this show I really started getting into them, I started talking to the vocalist, Jonny. He was straight edge and we got along pretty well. I went to all there shows, in Oshawa, Toronto and anywhere else I could get to. They were a really influential band to me, they helped me stay straight edge for a while when everybody was trying to get me to break. But they have also given Ontario hardcore a very bad reputation. Jonny is rumoured to like to hit on very young girls, and also pick fights with almost anybody. After touring the United States, the Americans thought that we were all like Jonny. Which bothers me a lot, because now we are stuck with this reputation and it is so hard to fight a band rep once you have gotten it. They started in 2004 as a joke, there wasn’t really anything going on in Ontario then for hardcore, and Jonny really wanted to be on stage. They first started out, mocking straight edge bands of that time. As the years went on they went through a lot of member changes. The band has had over 50 members. In august 2008 there were no longer any original members, so the band was now label controlled. So the Liferuiner we know now is actually just a bunch of people the label hired and aren’t the actual band. A few of the original band members are now in other acts. Jonny is now the drummer for Siberia, Gates is now the bassist for Deadwalk. Sebastian is now in Buried and Breathing. The rest of the members still go to shows.

Rant

I know this post is not really on subject with the rest of my posts, but it has been bothering me. I just can’t understand how self absorbed so many people are. They have no regard or care about anyone around them. You walk down the street not one person will move out of your way, you shoot someone a smile and they give you a dirty look. Like at work the other day a pregnant lady had her hand full of groceries and was struggling with the door, about 4 or 5 people walked right by her and didn’t bother helping. Then an older man finally came to her aid. It’s so sad that in one generation shift so much has gone downhill. Like the generation preceding mine is so much nicer. They are polite, will do stuff for others, will help their neighbours etc... But if you look at a 20 year old nowadays he wouldn’t lift a finger unless there was something in it for him. People won’t do anything for anyone but themselves. I hear the argument that maybe I have only encountered bad people and not yet seen the good out there. Turn on the news there is no good out there. All you ever see is war, poverty etc.. If people were good natured there wouldn’t be this many problems. I’m probably looking at this in a very pessimistic way, but every single person I have encountered has done such horrible things, me included. If given the chance anyone will stab anyone in the back for their gain. In my opinion ``nice`` is how big the gain has to be for someone to stab someone’s back. I have been trying for the last few months to be a nicer person. What for? I smile at people when they pass me, they give me dirty looks, I hold the door for someone, and I don’t even get a thank you. Being nice in this time and day will get you nowhere.



That’s my rant for today thanks!

Record Companies Too Greedy!

In the last few years, there has been an outrageous amount of complaints and lawsuits coming from record companies to innocent people. All this trouble because they downloaded a few songs. These labels have been suing anyone they could find, in new York a 12 year old girl was sued. She downloaded a few songs using Limewire pro, she thought it was okay because her mom paid a service charge for the programme. The girl is being sued for 150 000$ per song, the record companies settled at 3 500$. It is really getting out of hand. They need to calm down and go after the people who are actually doing something wrong.

These record companies are becoming greedier and greedier each and everyday. They claim that the artists are loosing so much money. But the reality of that matter is that artists only receive 6% of the CDs value and the rest goes to the label. 6% of a CD is about 80¢ a CD. And all the rest is in the pockets of the greedy record executives. This is completely unfair, the artists deserve more. So by downloading music instead of paying for it, then spending that money on a shirt or concert, you take the money from the labels and give it to the artists.


You can’t blame people for downloading pirated music. It’s so easy and for people like me it’s been around since I could remember. Since I was 11-12 I’ve been downloading music, without remorse. I always thought it was okay, I couldn’t go out and spend 15$ on a CD when I made an allowance of 10$ a week! So downloading was my only option.

Downloading music also has advantages for artist. For example you are a new band and you have not yet gotten much exposure. Putting your CD in a store is not going to help you out at all, no one will buy it. But say you put it online let people listen to a few songs for free, they will potentially buy the rest of the CD or even start going to your gigs which is where artist make most of there money.

The record companies are going after the wrong people. There are some people who burn CDs and sell them, that’s who they should go after. Not 12 year old girls downloading a few songs.

News article

April 6th 2009
Is It Really Stealing?

The Pirate bay being charged


The pirate bay is a torrent tracking website based in Sweden. A torrent is a file that someone places online, this person is called a seed. Then when it is placed online anyone, like you, can retrieve it and download it to there computer for personal use. The problem here is that people place music, movies and other things that you would normally have to pay for. This is where the conflict is, should the site be allowed to do so?

The Pirate bay are being charged for ``promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.`` The charges are being brought forth by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The trial had taken place in Stockholm Sweden in the district court. The start date of the trial was February 16th, on the 17th half of the charges laid were dropped due to lack of evidence. The evidence was presented for the following weeks till March 3rd. Now the record companies and web surfers alike wait for the verdict of the judge which will be delivered on the 17th of April

There will be a lot of people affected by this trial, if the charges stick. A lot of other torrent websites rely on the pirate bay for their torrents. Also up and coming artists like my band Kept in Combat, post there E.Ps and demos on torrent sites so that they can be heard and exposed to a wide range of people. Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Music group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment are some of the companies involved with the charges. All these companies want the torrent sharing to be stopped because it is hurting their profits.

Just last week there was a leak that was found on The Pirate Bay. This leak was of the new X-Men movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This movie is said to be unfinished and not a very good representation of the movie. Fox chairman, Tom Rothman says: "It's a complete misrepresentation of the film and is deeply unfair to the people who have worked on it for years." This leak is found on Pirate Bay, and this incident will help prosecutors get the charges to stick.

Nowadays downloading music has become the norm, weather or not it’s illegal. As far as I remember people have been downloading music. But none of that changes the fact that downloading pirated music IS against the law and can result in a 250 000$ fine per song or a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison.
Patrick Comeau

Friday march 27th

This past Friday I went to a concert in Toronto at the kathedral. The bands I was going to see were Get Wise out of Barrie, A Distance From from Markham, The Fitzpatrick Incident from Markham and the band I was most looking forward to was Rhinoceros from Rochester New York. The Fitzpatrick incident headlined this show, which I did not entirely agree with before the show. To me Rhinoceros should have headlined, for they were the touring band. But after seeing the turn out for Fitz compared to Rhino I now understand the decision made by James (the promoter). There was a good turnout during Rhino’s set but Fitz had way more kids and way more kids who knew the words and sang along at the front. Get wise was the first band to play, this was my first time seeing them, and they really impressed me. They were really tight considering they’ve been a band for only a few months now. They were really lively, their vocalist Chris came off the stage and sang in the crowd a bit, of course security told him to get back on stage cause of the mic cord. Nest up was ADF a band that I have been a fan of for a long time now and like every other time I see them I enjoyed it a lot. Now the band I was most stoked to see came on Rhinoceros I had no idea what they looked like before the show and wow was I surprised. The vocalist looked about 40 years old with a full beard and all. The drummer was pushing 400 pounds. You could tell they have been around for a long time and are really all about the music which I respect a lot. They opened with my favourite song, scum, it was a real good time. The vocalist sounded exactly like he did in recordings. Then the final act, my favourite band, was The Fitzpatrick Incident, they, like always, put on a tremendous show. This was a really good show and I had a tremendous time.