I know. I know. The Kardashians are a blight upon all humanity. How oh how could I stoop this low as to actually promote something from this vile brood of tabloid sensationalism that represents all that is wrong with modern civilization? Why? Why you ask? Well...because Kourtney Kardashian is uber sexy and in this case, my other head rules out over my rational one.
MILF-ian
While most everyone else on the planet is occupied with Kim, I've always been smitten with her pint sized, older sister Kourtney. There's a smoldering seductiveness about her. I can't quite put my finger on why, but she seriously drives me crazy! I know she can come across as smug or bitchy, or stuck up, or bitchy, or just mean, but in my sick/sad/deranged mind that only makes Kourtney hotter! At only 5 ft tall, Kourtney is a voluptuous little vixen. Her curvy body is like a less globular version of Kim. She may be the oldest of the Kardashian offspring but she hardly looks it. This thirty-two year old bombshell is also a certified MILF.
As for career achievements, well...she's Kim Kardashian's sister. Kim was friends with Paris Hilton back in the day when she "mattered," I guess. Their dad was one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers! Uh, yeah. So they're famous for being rich and hot. Sadly, Kourtney doesn't have any sextapes like Kim. She's also sprung on some douche bag who thinks he's Patrick Bateman. *Sigh*
Really Kourtney? REALLY?
Here's Kourtney acting semi retarded while trying to park on the street. She may FAIL miserably but damn if she doesn't look good while doing it.
I don't even know how many brain cells I lost from that one. Oh well. Here's some pics of Kourtney looking hot though!
Exhumed was one of my favorite death metal bands when I first discovered this whole extreme music scene back in the early 00's. I blew my chance to see them live back in the day before they went on "hiatus" for the last 5+ years. So now Exhumed is...back from the dead and I was STOKED to finally catch them live. Too bad this show landed on the same night as Torche headlining over at the Troubadour. I didn't care though, I HAD to see Exhumed.
So, I got off work later than expected and had to scramble to the venue just in the nick of time (like usual =/) so I wouldn't miss Withered. Some of you might remember my praise for this band from HERE. Withered's brand of sludgy black metal didn't exactly wow the crowd, but didn't seem to piss them off either. I'm so stoked I made it on time for their set. Aside from Exhumed's reunion, this was the band I wanted to see the most. Sadly, none of the photos/video I took from their set came out clear enough to use. Oh wells. I did manage to snag this sweet ass Withered poster (created by Paul Romano) from their merch table though!
Cephalic Carnage were next. I was super crushed to learn that drum god extraordinaire John Merryman is no longer in the band. His replacement is supposed to be a hot shot drum shredder and even a close friend of John's but honestly, the guy is NO John. It's sad that the band even opened with my favorite song of theirs ("Wraith") but the haphazard drumming totally let me down. I know it's tough crafting an awesome setlist when you're stuck in an opening slot on a tour like this, but Cephalic's choice of songs and shaky performance left me rather disappointed.
I think I was one of the only people in attendance who didn't care about Macabre. I know they're supposed to be legends or whatever but I've seen them before and the whole telling wacky stories in between songs shtick just didn't win me over. Their music is kind of generic/sloppy thrash that gets hailed as some kind of awesome proto-death metal but I just don't see it. Everyone else at the Key Club was stoked though. I sat down on a nice comfy couch and waited for Exhumed...
FINALLY, after years of waitingExhumed took the stage. Sadly it wasn't the super star lineup that recorded their awesome new album All Guts No Glory but rather frontman Matt Harvey and some hired gun ringers. That being said, the band still put on an awesome show. New songs off their latest comeback album blended perfectly with older tracks off Gore Metal, Slaughtercult and Anatomy is Destiny. Matt Harvey looked like he was having a blast onstage as the crowd near the front thrashed around while all us folks standing off to the side stood in awe watching our favorite gore metal band reanimated and kicking ass once again. Hopefully they don't vanish for another half decade.
Film of the summer? Yes. Film of the year? Maybe....just maybe. I was shocked at how good this reboot/prequel/whatever of the original Planet of the Apes series turned out to be. Like "holy fuck, how is this movie about a smart-ass CGI chimp kicking so much ass?" Well it does. This film kicks all sorts of primate ass. There's action, human on human melodrama and one amazing performance from a computer generated ape that honestly carries the weight of the entire film.
For those of you who haven't seen the original 1968 Planet of the Apes, lrn2Netflix. Really, it's a multi-generational classic that should be seen/appreciated by all. Rise of the Planet of the Apes does just what the title implies, revealing how a bunch of wild primates other throw humanity and wind up ruling the planet. James Franco plays Will Rodman, a preppy mad scientist who desperately seeks to cure his father's Alzheimer's disease. While testing an experimental drug on laboratory apes, Will inadvertently creates an uber genius chimpanzee named Caesar (played BRILLIANTLY by Andy Serkis) and is also kind of responsible for setting the stage for the ultimate downfall of human civilization as a whole, but hey...his intentions were good!
and the Oscar goes to...
They should have really just called this film, Rise of the Ape, because it's all about Caesar. Seriously. The rest of the cast is ok and yeah Freida Pinto is cute as hell, but Andy Serkis' performance as Caesar is simply out of this world. I haven't been this wet over CGI effects since Spielberg brought dinosaurs to life in Jurassic Park. Caesar undergoes a harrowing transformation in this film, from wide eyed lovable companion to a scarred and jaded revolutionary. At it's core Rise of the Planet of the Apes may just be an amped up summer popcorn flick but thanks to Serkis' performance it's really so much more than that. Also, it features all kinds of cool little tie-ins/homages to the original film (mounted cops on horseback chasing apes..iseewhatudidthere). Rise of the Planet of the Apes, my "holy crap" movie of the summer. Maybe of the year.
It's only fitting that since my blog is named after The Dillinger Escape Plan song "Jim Fear," that the first installment of my new DrumTHRONE segment should honor the dude who wrote/played on the track in the first place. May I welcome the first recipient of my prestigious DrumTHRONE honor (modest huh?) Ex- Dillinger Escape Plan and current Coheed and Cambria drummer, Chris Pennie.
The first time I heard Pennie's playing I wasn't impressed. That's mostly because I didn't know what the hell I was listening to. I couldn't snap my fingers or keep time the discordant polyrhythmic
onslaught being unleashed on my ears. Pennie's playing style is relentless. Imagine a T-800 Terminator programmed to kill drums instead of people. He can play blindingly fast tempos and odd time signatures with startling power and precision. Like a human metronome that chews a lot of gum. During his tenure in Dillinger, Pennie incorporated his extreme mastery of rudiments (machine gun snare work and double bass) with tasty jazz grooves and even electronic sounding breakbeat patterns. Pennie and Dillinger parted ways in 2007 and he's been playing with prog rock-ish Coheed and Cambria ever since. I'll be honest, I'm not much of a Coheed fan so I haven't really seen/heard anything Pennie has done with them save for a few underwhelming Youtube clips. It's doesn't really matter though, he could be playing on pots and pans for quarters on the sidewalk and Chris Pennie will still be the king of the DrumTHRONE.
As revealed in my LEGENDARY interview with Zombies Everywhere back in June...I'm a drummer. Well sometimes. Living in an apartment and trying to practice one foot blasts all night is kind of impossible. Sadly, for the past few years my drums have been crammed into various garages and guest rooms at friend's houses. I only get to play them once in a blue moon but hey, when I do it's pretty fun/tiring/awesome. Here's an old clip of my girlfriend goofing around on my kit (6 piece Gretsch Catalina Ash...ebay FTW!).
The drums are somewhere else now, in a smaller room and set up in a much smaller configuration. Woe is me. etc. etc.
So this marks the beginning of a new installment here at Jim's Fear I like to call DrumTHRONE. It's like the drum geek version of Crunch Time, but instead of wetting my panties over heavy metal guitar riffs, I'll gush over the dudes that bash shit real good with sticks. Stay tuned the first official installment soon!
Remember how I said I was back to the blogging world? Well a few things have slowed down my triumphant return.
1st, my internet was down Monday morning before I left for work. 2nd, Blogger and Youtube have fallen out of sync on my computer so every time I log into my Youtube account to access my "favorites/watch later" lists to share here...I get logged out of my blog and vice versa. 3rd. I got a speeding ticket last night and this has me in RAGE mode because that shit is going to be expensive and it's literally all I can think about right now.
Google's Blogger and Youtube FINALLY seem to be at peace with each other so now I can hopefully get this show on the road again. *crosses fingers*
So my little birthday vacation is over. Had an interesting week off but alas, I must return to reality. Since I'm back to the work day grind, I've got a little grindcore video from Singapore's finest for ya'll. Enjoy the Wormrot folks. See you and all your blogs soon.
So today is my birthday. I'm not a fan of getting older and usually loathe/dread my birthday every year but this time, I'm indifferent. Lots of things have changed for me this past year so I'm slightly less morbid about my countdown toward certain death and will try to actually enjoy myself for a change. I have the next couple of days off from work and although I have a post or two scheduled for ye ol' Jim's Fear bloggy blog, I may not be following ya'll so much. As a consolation for my absence I have a sort of birthday gift for you bloggers...
enjoy this kick ass Iron Maiden tune on loop until I return!
no love for Eddie and the boys? Too bad. It's my birthday and I'll blast Iron Maiden if I want to.
That would be so rad if I got an Iron Maiden/Eddie cake. Super Rad. *crosses fingers*
Stop. Really. Just give up. There's no point in anything anymore. This kid is cooler than you or I will ever be.
He's only nine years old (according to youtube)and he even does the damn Randy Roads solo!
Here's another bunch of kids jamming to Rage Against The Machine's "Bulls on Parade." The girl looks about four feet tall, yet she's dropping hits like de la O and plays guitar simultaneously.
These kids are all students from the Frederick Rock School in Maryland. I wonder if they taught her how to rap, or lil' "Crazy Train" dude how to sport a mohawk. Either way, these kids rule pretty hard.
Looks like we have a winnner! It's the king of all bloggers, the legendary...The Angry Lurker.
This is Lurker's 2nd Take a Guess victory. The dude definitely knows his stuff! Congrats again sir. Now, onto the movie in question...
Bronson is a dark and twisted psychological thrill ride. Imagine the sheer lunacy of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange mixed with the seedy squalor of Scorese's Taxi Driver and you'll get the gist of what this film is like. Or maybe not. Refn's film, based on the true life story of England's most notorious prison inmate, is an avant-garde exercise of extremes, often as enthralling and perplexing as the real Charles Bronson himself.
Why so...BANE
Tom Hardy plays Michael Peterson, a down and out street thug with a bit of an angry streak who goes onto become an acclaimed bareknuckle brawler under the name Charles Bronson as well as, the most dangerous and bat shit insane inmate in the UK's prison system. Dude tears his way through numerous prisons and even more prison guards over the course of three decades. Everything about this film is low budget yet mesmerizing. Things get a little strange sometimes (re: all the time) but you'll be too tripped out to care. Seeing a naked man wrestling in his own feces is something you'll just adapt to over the course of this film. As for Hardy, he gives a career defining performance with this role. He put on something like 40lbs of muscle to become this stark raving maniac and literally bares it all for this film. Anyone who doubts Christopher Nolan's casting of Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises needs to see his stellar performance in Bronson first.
Can any of you bloggers tell me what movie features this song?
(Don't fret, the song is only 6, not 10 mins long!)
Feel free to answer below in the comments section. Please refrain from using google/wikipedia/browsing the youtube comments to find the answer...cheating gets you nowhere! I'll post the answer tomorrow (or the next time I update) and the winner gets my total movie nerd respect and a shout out/link for being awesome.
And the streak continues! Another great comic book film from Marvel Studios. I guess the old adage "if you want some thing done right..." comes to mind here. Marvel faced a few problems regarding this project. First, Captain America is fucking boring. Yeah I said it. He's the ultimate boy scout and is as one dimensional as vanilla ice cream. Second, he isn't all that "super." Lacking any real super powers, Cap could have easily been upstaged by the Thor/X-Men/Green Lantern type flicks that feature awesome CGI bursts of energy darting across the screen. Luckily, director Joe Johnston and Marvel managed to side step these issues and craft a nifty little summer action romp.
So the entire movie is a flashback/origin story for Steve Rogers, the scrawny young reject who oh so desperately wants to serve his country during World War II and signs up for a top secret government project turning him into not just a super solider, but Captain America, the world's first Avenger (See what I did there? Marvel, call me). Chris Evans does a wonderful job as Steve Rogers. I'll call him Steve Rogers because, even after he gets all yoked out and dons the red, white and blues, Evans always retains the human/underdog qualities that make the otherwise boring boyscout that is Captain America worth watching. In fact there are scenes in the film that show just how uncomfortable Rogers is dressed up as a "hero" and always retains a true sense of himself throughout.
At first I was like...but then I was like...
Yeah, the movie is kind of cheesy. There are way too many montage sequences that defy the golden rule of storytelling 101 (show don't tell the audience what's going on, but hey, it IS a comic book movie after all) and there isn't a whole lot of action. That being said, the action that is covered is pretty rad. Watching Steve Rogers make mince meat of random Hydra bad guys never gets old. Hugo Weaving does an adequate job as the Red Skull, menacing but not over the top....which says a lot for a dude rocking a giant red fucking skull. Tommy Lee Jones plays the typical military hardass but he does it rather well. Major kudos to Hayley Atwell as well. At first I was afraid she was simply going to be eye candy but by the end of the flick I was totally sold on her performance.
must.salute.officer...
Speaking of the ending. It sucks. Not in a bad way but in a sad way. Like I suddenly realized I how emotionally invested I had become in these characters and was surprisingly upset about the inevitable end that as a comic geek, I already KNEW was coming. So yeah, Captain America: The First Avenger is a solid summer flick and a really good example of how to pull off a comic book film (you taking notes DC comics?).
Since I'm bipolar and like all sorts of retarded tunes, here's yet another new music video, although this one's a bit different from my last post (Immolation!!!!!)
Instead of being sponsored by the left over cash Scion uses to promote it's cars to lowly metal heads, this new vid is backed by MTV/Viacom (an epic media conglomerate). It stars apparent "celebrities," although I only recognized Chloe Moretz from Let Me In, and was directed by Drew Barrymore. That on again, off again fat chick from The Wedding Singer. Either way, I dig the video. West Side Story meets Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
My best good friends at Scion have produced yet another high quality music video for us degenerate extreme metal aficionados. Here's the mighty IMMOLATION rocking the creepy black & white like Metallica in 88'. This song is eerie, crushing and all around awesome. Can't wait for their headlining tour this fall.
Some of you long time readers might recall that I'm totally gay for that silly old bear from the Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie the Pooh. He's been my best friend since I was in diapers and will always bring a smile to my miserable, grimaced face. This isn't exactly a movie review because I realized there was no way for me to be objective about Pooh's new movie. I would see it and love it no matter what. Yes, its a kids movie. The plot is, well there isn't really a plot but who cares. It's only an hour long and if it doesn't bring a smile to your face there is something clinically wrong with you. My homie Craig Ferguson voices Owl and the lovely Zooey Deschanel provides a few songs for the soundtrack.
When it comes to Winnie the Pooh, everybody wins...especially me.
Summer Slaughter number five folks. Where does the time go? I still remember my head exploding from the announcement of the very first Summer Slaughter lineup back in 07. For those of you who don't know, this is a traveling extreme metal concert package/mini festival. Like an Ozzfest/Warped Tour for scumbags. Much smaller venues than said tours, but filled with much gnarlier bands (DYING FETUS!!!!!).
So I wasn't too stoked with this year's lineup but for the sake of supporting my boys The Black Dahlia Murder and the mighty Dying Fetus I decided to brave the annual sweat-fest that is Summer Slaughter.
We arrived late and missed the first five bands. This sucked since I really wanted to see Fleshgod Apocalypse and was morbidly curious about Powerglove and their videogame/cartoon metal sound but alas, next time perhaps. Luckily, we arrived just as Dying Fetus was about to hit the stage. Although their set length was tragically short, they made the best of their brief time onstage and simply crushed the House of Blues to pieces. I've gushed about the mighty Fetus before (Crunch Time: Feb 2011) so a succinct description will do: they ruled.
Six Feet Under was next. I loved Chris Barnes' vocals on the old Cannibal Corpse records but sadly, I never cared for his post-Cannibal work with Six Feet Under (save for the awesome track they did with my hero Ice-T) and planned on heading outside to try and chat up the Dying Fetus fellows. THANK GOD I STOOD INSIDE. I totally forgot that Six Feet Under has a new hired gun lineup consisting of two dudes from Chimaira and motherfucking Kevin Talley on drums. Talley has played with over 2.5 million different metal bands including two of my favorites, Misery Index and Dying Fetus. Having Talley and these other young dudes in Six Feet Under is kind of a big deal. The new youth infused band not only blasted through Six Feet Under's otherwise boring AC/DC-ish tunes, but busted out some damn awesome Cannibal Corpse covers! They opened with "Stripped Raped and Strangled" and closed with "Hammer Smashed Face" and the metal fiends at Summer Slaughter went ballistic. Sure, Barnes' vocals sounded a little rough...and those high register shrieks he does are flat out painful to listen to, but the dude gave the people what they wanted and finally played some oldschool Cannibal songs! It was pretty amazing.
Darkest Hour have been one of my favorite bands for years now but sadly, they did not stand a chance on this year's lineup. I really don't know how they keep getting on these Summer Slaughter tours. It's a definite case of "One of these things is not like the other..." The band has energy for days while onstage but it's a matter of their material, more specifically their newer songs that just don't fit the overall Summer SLAUGHTER motif. Older, thrashy/At the Gates-ish tunes like "The Saddist Nation" got the best response from the crowd while newer songs off their latest album The Human Romance just kind of hummed along. It didn't help that John Henry's voice seemed a bit hoarse either (not a good sign on the 1st day of the tour is it?!). They put on a good show and still had my imaginary long hair banging, but they still were totally out of place.
Whitechapel surprised the shit out of me. I really had no expectations for this band after seeing them open for other bands throughout the years but ended up enjoying their set and had a giant grin on my face watching kids go apeshit crazy in the pit during their set. Ironic, my first time seeing Whitechapel was when they opened for Darkest Hour in 2008 and now they were sharing a co-headlining slot and played after them. I still think it's retarded having three guitar players and feel their drummer is waaay to talented to be holding back like he does during some of their songs, but damn if their frontman, although a tiny lad, isn't awesome. He literally stands up on a stage ramp/soapbox and delivers rapid fire guttural sermons of who knows what. Well played Whitechapel. I might have to start listening to this band more often.
Finally, we get to the main event. The Black Dahlia Murder never disappoint live. They came out and owned the Summer Slaughter 2011. Not only does Black Dahlia, or BDM, succeed in writing amazingly catchy death metal tunes and always whip crowds into a frenzy, but these silly bastards are just FUN.
That's right, going to a Black Dahlia Murder show is like a a heavy metal house party. Everyone is singing along, acting stupid and actually smiling. All the newer stuff they played off their latest album Ritual sounded great live, even "Blood in the Ink" which sounds like a gay attempt at The Phantom of the Opera on CD. When they started playing "A Vulgar Picture" I couldn't control myself and handed my camera off to my friend, running down into floor/pit/warzone and somehow ended up crowd surfing. It was awesome. haha. Had I known they were going to play "Nocturnal" right after I probably would have waited on the crowd surfing but eh, still stoked to hear two of my favorite BDM songs played back to back.
The Summer Slaughter 2011 is currently rolling across North America. Be sure to catch The Black Dahlia Murder and Dying Fetus if you decide to brave the sweaty/smelly/extreme metal dude fest.
*Bonus Video*
The dude from ConcertConfessions.com (a great site for awesome reviews/videos) captured me being retarded/crowd surfing. I'm the goober in the white shirt @ the 3:03 mark.
