HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.25.09

I finished my review of Falling Up‘s Fangs! finally, which is ironic since by the time this issue comes out it will be a five-month-old album. Guess we missed it back in March when it came out. These things happen.

One of the Tooth & Nail publicists sent me The Glorious Unseen‘s album that drops August 25 unsolicited today, so I’ll have to check it out tomorrow. I’m not sure Doug’s opinion on them, so I don’t know if they’ll make it in the mag but I really like dude’s voice and they write captivating worship songs and cover some of the better songs from the past few years by several David Crowder worship-with-artistic-integrity types.

Bear with me while I be a fanboy once again – I was listening to The Receiving End of Sirens‘ The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi and following along with the lyrics and I learned the song “Disappear (Oubliette)” is based on The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis – one of my favorite books. I always heard some spiritual undertones on TREOS’ songs (they mention sin elsewhere, though I wrote it off since non-believers can use the word too) but just thought I was a crazy Christian wanting to project my beliefs into music intended to be secular. I didn’t think they had any connection to Christianity whatsoever. Holy crap, my instinct was right for once… and I told it to shut up and just enjoy the music for what it was, not realizing that my gut was right and it was actually based on spiritual stuff. I love it when I find out cool stuff about a band I love, which in this case means very little to anyone since they broke up, but it gives me another layer to appreciate on an album that was already one of my top albums based on lyrical depth and intricacies of sound. No idea if they’re Christians or just fans of Lewis’ writing, but that matters little to me. I already would have had to try hard to think of another album from the last couple years that tops it. Please give it a listen if you haven’t heard it – I’m not objective at all but I think it’s ridiculously artistic, yet still accessible.

Oh man tomorrow’s gonna be fun,
Corey Erb

“I watched you steal away / A man’s best years / With the drumming of his fingers / With the kicking of his heels /…/ Because anything or not a thing will do / (A dead fire in a cold room)” – from “Disappear (Oubliette)” by The Receiving End of Sirens (Last mention for a month, promise. Well, maybe…)

HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.19.09

Crazy day. Doug and I started the day by showing Kelly the new intern around a bit. She’s nice. She’s from Ohio so she and I talked about Ohio stuff for a while since my dad’s side of the family is mostly there and I have a good amount of connections there.

Trevor McNevan from Thousand Foot Krutch called right at 10 as arranged and we had a good conversation about everything from NHL video games to Aerosmith to Taco Bell to the song “Blue Monday” by… well… a band whose name made him a little uncomfortable to mention in an interview, though we laughed about it and he suggested I listen to it when I related that I hadn’t heard it in probably 10 years. Good memories. Let me just tease you with the tidbit that there’s a song on TFK’s new record, Welcome to the Masquerade that’s a nod to that song’s industrial flair. It was a really insightful interview and I can’t wait for you all to read it. Check out their first single off the new album, “Bring Me To Life.”

I also talked to Matt Mullins, Memphis May Fire‘s new singer. I felt like I got a lot of good info from him as well, and I think their Trustkill debut, Sleepwalking, is going to sell. They’ve got such a diverse sound, which is something we discussed at length, and I love Mullins’ style when he screams, how he changes up his diction tempo within words.

One band that was supposed to be on Memphis May Fire’s upcoming tour, Oceana, whose album we reviewed in the last issue, broke up yesterday, just as I was starting to get excited about the band. These things happen though. You should still give them a listen. They’ve got a unique post-hardcore, experimental sound, sort of like a The Receiving End of Sirens with more screaming. (Hmm, that’s my second TREOS reference this week; I think I’ve reached my quota.)

Speaking of obscure broken-up band references, my comment about Justifide the other day made me curious to see if I still had any pictures of me in my old Justifide t-shirt. Sure enough, here you go – proof that I’m not all talk (just mostly):

Now, before any of you freak out, that’s not my girlfriend – it’s an old friend of mine – and it’s the only picture I had of me wearing that Justifide shirt. We went to grade school together and she actually played a role in my becoming a Christian since she invited and drove me to the church that I was eventually baptized at a couple years after her initial invitation.

Haha enough nostalgia for one post. It’s probably a good thing I’m staying here during Cornerstone Festival. I love the Cornerstone experience and I always feel conflicted when I can’t make it but I’ve got a ton of work to do with our mid-July final deadline creeping slowly up – and at least I get to go to Warped Tour in San Antonio, which is while Doug will be away at C-stone. I’ve never been to Warped and I’ll be able to take photos and maybe interview some bands that I’ve never seen live like Thrice.

Don’t be that guy,
Corey Erb

“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” – African proverb

HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.18.09

You may have heard me mention the mewithoutYou show in my last post or by reading one of my 341 Tweets from the venue, but in case you wanted more about that show, you’re in luck!

First off, let me say that Aaron Weiss’ live personality is as billed. He runs the gamut between spastic and serene, frenzied and stoic, and exuberant and somber. And apparently he inspires large adjectives. But that’s just further testament to the fact that he is as thought-provoking a frontman as there is in the muddled rock scene today.

The rest of the band did their jobs – they played their respective instruments skillfully and deferred to their engaging friend holding the mic. That’s not to say they were forgettable, though. Each member took his turn in the spotlight at least once, particularly drummer Richard Mazzotta on the final few songs of the set.

The crowd made it a much more enjoyable show. The band sounded a bit shaky on some of their new songs off “it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright” and the audience was hesitant to get too involved, but as soon as the first note of favorites like “Paper Hanger” sounded, the sweaty crowd was more than eager to shout along with the gravelly vocals and move around in the packed room. “January 1979” was a highlight as the audience got the most rowdy. But then again, uninvited stage dancers and crowd surfers tend to make any song more enjoyable from a bystander’s point of view.

Aaron breaking out the acoustic guitar and switching to a singing-not-yelling vocal tone made “In a Sweater Poorly Knit” a welcome change-up.

Also, whenever he strapped on the accordion there was fun to be had, whether it was by watching him sway back and forth holding a big old-fashioned instrument with a towel on his head or by listening to the way he fit the accordion’s unique pitch into the rest of the rich instrumental sounds.

Tuesday night made it clear that if every mewithoutYou album was streamed straight into the brain with an accompanying video of the band playing all the songs, there would be no doubt who the kings of experimental rock are. I’ll admit straight-up that I’ve never been a huge fan of the band. It’s always been more of a “Oh yeah, they write really deep songs. Cool.” thing than a “Man, I know every word to every song” thing. But I guess in experiencing the band’s collective persona live and seeing the guy in front of me with mwY lyrics tattooed on both his forearms, I started to realize that the hype about this band is legit.

We got there late (what else is new for me) so I only got to hear parts of two songs by The Dear Hunter, but from what I heard they’re pretty talented live musicians as I expected, and Casey Crescenzo’s voice was hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck-raising even in that abbreviated listen. That’s not an exaggeration for illustrative purposes, either – it happened.

While mewithoutYou was setting up we caught a few songs’ worth of Dear and the Headlights on the indoor stage. I’m familiar with their lead singer, Ian Metzger, from his days in the old Christcore band Justifide, but I haven’t followed him in Dear and the Headlights that much since he left Justifide almost a decade ago. I like their sound, it has kind of a dirtier indie rock vibe. Maybe I’ll try to catch their full set at Warped Tour in San Antonio in a couple weeks.

After the show, Doug and I spoke with Brandon from The Rocketboys and the guitarist from Hundred Year Storm. Both bands are featured in the new issue of HM – a review of HYS’s album and The Rocketboys in the Declaration of Independents section. They’re both really nice guys. You should check them out and read what we had to say about their bands in the new issue or as a digital copy.

I’ll give an update of all today’s happenings tomorrow, I think I’ve given you enough to chew on for tonight.

It ain’t that kind of party,
Corey Erb

“I stopped believing, you start to move / (She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine) / I stopped my leaving and the better man bloomed / (And you can pour us out and we won’t mind)” – from “Paper Hanger” by mewithoutYou

HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.16.09

So I guess I scared off the other intern with my verbal bullying yesterday so she decided her car was gonna break down so she can’t come in till Friday. Ha! I see right through that, you’re not fooling anyone!

Naw, I hope it gets fixed (and for free, I hate car maintenance costs) and she makes it here safely. (Ha I guess I really am mean, aren’t I?)

Anyway! I got interviews with Thousand Foot Krutch and Showbread set up and will be listening to both forthcoming albums soon to further prepare. I proofread several articles, columns and reviews that have been coming in lately as well.

This afternoon, I got a ridiculously random idea for a book I think I’m going to write (no, Doug, I’m not going to steal your unpublished novel). I made some notes as thoughts came to mind but I think I’ll sit on it for a while till I can make sure it wasn’t just that I got some bad granola this morning or something…

Doug and I are going to see mewithoutYou play at Emo’s in downtown Austin with The Dear Hunter and Bear Colony in a bit. I’ll admit I’ve never been the biggest mwY fan but I enjoy deep lyrics so I’ll keep an open mind especially for their live show. I can say I’m looking forward to seeing The Dear Hunter, though. It’s ex-The Receiving End Of Sirens guitarist/co-vocalist Casey Crescenzo‘s experimental rock band, and I’ll be interested to hear them live since the only two albums they’ve released are acts I and II of a six-act story about the birth (to a prostitute), life and death of a boy known as “The Dear Hunter.” I wonder if they’ll play songs more or less in order of the story, or if they’ll just play random stuff. Their new album comes out next week so I suppose they’ll probably play a good amount of new material and that may take precedence over concerns of chronology. We’ll see if they break out any of the various horns or strings live that they feature on studio material. I hear Crescenzo has a really good live voice too. I guess he produced and even co-wrote some of the music on Falling Up‘s latest album Fangs!, which is a concept album as well. I’ll let you know what I think of all of them, and post some pictures if you’re lucky – and assuming I can get there on time and without getting lost ha.

Sleep now in the fire,
Corey Erb

“Crimson hands, brandish words which masquerade / If you flee from grace your souls can not be saved” – from “The Oracles on the Delphi Express” by The Dear Hunter