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The Friday Five: March 8, 2013

Coheed and Cambria - “Keeping the Blade” (Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Vol 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, 2005)
I was unsure if I should count this one, but since it’s as long as some of the SST tunes I’ve covered here, I figured why not. Sounding very much like something from the movie Halloween—and very unlike what you might imagine from the title—“Keeping the Blade” is a pretty little intro to Coheed’s third album, the first of the two-album fourth and final section of Claudio’s The Amory Wars storyline. Confused yet?! Meow.

Hayseed Dixie - “Christine Sixteen” (Kiss My Grass: A Hillbilly Tribute to KISS, 2003)
Hayseed Dixie makes another Five appearance with their excellent rendition of a KISS song that reveals Gene’s disturbing attraction to a teenaged schoolgirl. Seems oddly appropriate for them to cover.

Bill Evans - “Mother Nature’s Son” (In Good Company, 2012)
From one bluegrass cover to another, this time a very, very short nod to the Beatles.

Five O’Clock People - “Now I Sing” (The Nothing Venture, 1999)
I have never found it as difficult to uncover information about a band as with Five O’Clock People. I discovered this act through a friend, and immediately fell in love with their acoustic flavor of CCM, a little like early-day independent label Caedmon’s Call, but without the aspiration to make it as the next big thing in modern pop Christiandom. It looks at this point as if their music is no longer available anywhere unless you can luck up and find a new or used physical copy at a specialty store somewhere. As such, I posted this song to my blog so you can hear it for yourself.

Iron Maiden - “The Number of the Beast (Los Angeles, USA, The Forum, Feb 19, 2008)” (Flight 666 Original Soundtrack, 2009)
Finally something rocking, although I’m not sure what I can say about this iconic Maiden number that hasn’t been said before. I guess the only thing I can add is that they sound really good for a bunch of old guys.

Coheed & Cambria Rig Rundown

Premier Guitar’s Rebecca Dirks catches up with Claudio Sanchez’s guitar tech and Travis Stever for a run-through of the guitars, amps, and effects Coheed & Cambria are using on tour.

Oh, and Gibson Explorer. Coolest. Guitar. Ever.

Coheed & Cambria performs “Dark Side of Me” on Conan on 1/21/2013

This doesn’t happen very often, especially with mid-tempo songs like this, but I like this live version much, much better than the album and video versions.

Good, Bad, Ugly, or Otherwise

Coheed and Cambria - “Domino the Destitute”

We made our beds to lie in them proud,
Proud of our great mistakes

Here’s the new video from the upcoming Coheed and Cambria album The Afterman: Ascension. As one would expect from Claudio Sanchez, the song is a rhythmically complex, lyrically elusive riff-fest, and it makes absolutely no sense at all unless you have some idea of the storyline behind it (which I don’t, by the way). The Afterman is a two-part story arc that will span two albums, the second of which is due in February 2013, and it represents a new storyline in Sanchez’s The Amory Wars tale.

I never even remotely understood the storyline that centered around Claudio Kilgannon and his parents Coheed and Cambria (not that I tried too terribly hard), so I doubt I’ll be able to follow this new one either. That’s alright with me; I’ll just focus on the music.

Enjoy!

The Friday Five: June 8, 2012

Nothing much to tell you, I’ve got Friday Five on my mind.

Coheed and Cambria - “Sentry the Defiant”
Coheed frontman Claudio Sanchez unveiled a new song from the band’s as yet untitled sixth album by way of a guitar cam video posted to YouTube on Valentine’s Day. He claimed the acoustic version was “literally the first time [he] played the song through in its entirety,” and after catching the video, I quickly jumped in line to claim a copy of the audio when it was made available on the band’s website.

Anthrax - “Taking the Music Back” (We’ve Come For You All, 2003)
“Taking the Music Back” is a great example of why WCFYA was my favorite album from John Bush era Anthrax. Lots of energy and tons of attitude, coupled with lots of melody and—dare I say it—some pop sensibility to boot. It also doesn’t hurt that the songwriting on the album is good.

Def Leppard - “Overture” (Live at the BBC, 1979)
Live bootleg version of a song that the Lep had released on an EP that eventually found its home on On Through the Night way back when they were still a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band. Clocking in at nearly eight minutes and containing several thematic shifts, “Overture” was no doubt intended to be a grand, epic statement from the band similar to that of progressive bands of the day. This recording shows a young, hungry, energetic band belting out something that sounds somewhere between Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden that today remains quite a bit different from anything else they ever recorded.

King’s X - “Talk to You” (Faith Hope Love, 1990)
“Talk to You” is a wild, careening King’s X tune with twists and turns and stop-start rhythms that sounds like it could run off the tracks at any moment. For years I’ve wondered why my favorite band has been overlooked so often, but as I listen back now, I’m keenly aware that King’s X was probably just a bit too much for casual music listeners to take in. Oh well, their loss.

Ginger Wildheart - “In Vino Veritas” (555%, 2012)
Another tune from Ginger’s latest solo project—this time an instrumental—and the third track today to feature more than a few rhythm changes and thematic shifts. The title translates to “in wine [there is] truth,” but for the life of me, I can’t figure out the connection. Maybe it was the inspiration?

Second great Friday Five in a row. I’m starting to get worried.

The Friday Five: March 30, 2012

I stole your Friday Five over at IckMusic. Ain’t never gonna let it go.

KISS - “I Stole Your Love” (Alive II, 1977)
Another classic from KISS’s second live album. Same annoying fake crowd noise.

Caedmon’s Call - “Mystery of Mercy” (Back Home, 2003)
Version of the Andrew Peterson-penned song that I covered in the 2/17/2012 Friday Five. Not much else to say about it.

Coheed & Cambria - “Delirium Trigger” (The Second Stage Turbine Blade, 2005)
I love most of the music produced by the C & C music factory (no, not that C & C Music Factory), but good grief, I wish I understood the story arc behind these albums.

Iron Maiden - “Iron Maiden” (Flight 666: The Original Soundtrack, 2009)
I’ve gotten so used to Trivium’s version of this song that the original sounds old and slow to me these days. But a great song nonetheless. The Flight 666 rockumentary has some excellent live footage. The Central America and South American crowds are completely insane (see also: Rush in Rio). Looks like a fun time and quite a refreshing difference from the typical spoiled, cooler-than-you American concert goer.

Mötley Crüe - “Starry Eyes” (Too Fast for Love (Leathür Records version), 1981)
The original Leathür records version of one of my favorite songs off the Crüe’s debut album. A couple of friends and I literally wore out the cassette version of the Elektra release of this album. Good times playing air guitar, air cowbell, and trying to sing in Vince Neil’s Mickey Mouse falsetto. Can I get the real Mötley Crüe back?! Whatever happened to these guys?

Please Accept This As My Resignation

Coheed & Cambria - “Sentry the Defiant”

What was it about Valentine’s Day (and the few days surrounding it) that made so many bands show its fans some love this year? Ginger did it. The Mars Volta did it. And I just found out that Coheed & Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez did it, too—released new music that is.

Sanchez fired up his guitar cam to give us all an acoustic sneak peek at the new song he is working on for the band’s as yet untitled sixth album. The song is “Sentry the Defiant,” and the Coheed frontman says of the video version on the band’s YouTube channel, “This is literally the first time I played the song through in its entirety.” It will come as no surprise that the new release will be another concept album—does Claudio do anything else?—and will be another Amory Wars prequel set further in the past and “will hint and influence the pre-existing saga.”

My first impressions of the song? Freakin’ awesome. And how low can you tune an acoustic guitar before the strings go all flappy on you?

Enjoy!

The Friday Five: October 28, 2011

I think I’m goin’ blind from shufflin’ IckMusic’s Friday Five!

Rush - “The Spirit of Radio” (Rush in Rio, 2003)
Rush has always been an amazing live band, and this DVD/CD combo helps solidify the fact that the band was as good as ever in the early 2000s. The Rio crowds are crazy fanatical about their music, and this entire concert is a lot of fun.

Coheed and Cambria - “The Velourium Camper I: Faint of Hearts” (In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, 2003)
Comic book rock from the very talented and creative mind of Claudio Sanchez. I just wish all of their stuff was as catchy as this. Heck, I wish the second half of this song was as catchy as the first half. “Koo koo k’choo!”

Dinosaur Jr. - “Goin’ Blind” (KISS My Ass, 1994)
Admirable kover of this klassic KISS kut. Ahem. I didn’t really know what to think of this album when it first came out, especially since it was so closely controlled by Gene and Paul. But then again, what in the KISS circus isn’t?! This is definitely one of the better tracks from this collection that stylistically is all over the map.

The Wildhearts - “Top of the World” (The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, 2003)
Ginger should be the most sought-after songwriting partner in the world. At the very least, he and The Wildhearts should be a much, much bigger deal than they are. Catchy, well-written songs, great melodies, and crunchy riffs.

Mutual Admiration Society - “Think About your Troubles” (Live at The Bowl at Lime Kiln, 8/17/2004)
I’ve never really cared for this Harry Nilsson cover, but I love the combination of Glen Phillips and Nickel Creek. They recorded and completed their debut album in 3 days, but it took 3.5 years to get it released due to record company shenanigans. The recorded versions of their songs are good, but this collective really shines in a live environment.

Come What May

Coheed and Cambria - “Blood Red Summer”

Seeing “Blood Red Summer” on MTV some years back—it was Headbangers Ball if I’m not mistaken—was my introduction to the band Coheed and Cambria. The video’s plot has absolutely nothing to do with the song’s lyrics, which are based on frontman Claudio Sanchez’ elaborate story The Amory Wars (and from which the band derived its name and is the focal point of its music), but toward the end, amid Claudio’s cries of “What did I do to deserve this?” you might begin to believe the song could actually be about defending yourself in a wilderness encampment from your friends who have turned into red-eyed zombie-like creatures. Maybe that’s the point?

Enjoy!

A Rush And A Push

Coheed & Cambria covers The Smiths

The A.V. Club Undercover is a video series run by The Onion’s A.V. Club where they invite 25 bands to come into their offices to cover a list of songs by artists that run the gamut from Hall & Oates to Pink Floyd, from The Beach Boys to The Rolling Stones, and from Depeche Mode to Nirvana. This week’s episode features Coheed & Cambria covering “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours” by The Smiths. To give you an idea of what you’re dealing with in the A.V. Club, here’s their tagline for this episode:

The progressive-rocking New Yorkers strip way down and get gentle with The Smiths.

Not being familiar with the original song (and not being a super-huge Smiths fan to boot), I went out to give it a listen so that I could compare the two fairly:

Coheed turns what was largely a synth-based (and is that a glockenspiel?!) affair into a two-man acoustic guitar ballad. Also gone are Morrissey’s punchy, upbeat delivery and quirky sense of humor, replaced by the emotional, almost fervent pleading of Coheed founder Claudio Sanchez.

For some reason, this change really set off the A.V. Club fanboys. If you are up for a good time—and you are willing to throw away precious moments of your life that you will never get back—go and read the cooler-than-you hipsters whine in the comments threads about how bad the cover is, about how much they hate Coheed & Cambria, and about how much Sanchez looks like a metal guy. Here’s my favorite so far:

When the singer got to the line, “And people who are uglier than you and I”, it did make me pause and wonder if such people actually exist.

One of the things I personally look for in a good cover song is enough resemblance to the original that it is recognizable mixed with enough of a difference to keep it interesting, which, if you think about it, is no small task. And I think Coheed does an admirable job at it.

Talk amongst yourselves …

This Is Not Your Playground, It’s My Heart

Coheed and Cambria is one of those bands that I have an on-again, off-again “music crush” on. Their music is heavy and progressive—although founder, vocalist, and guitarist Claudio Sanchez bristles at the term—with an epic nature that is alternately dark and lively depending on the needs of the song, all while maintaining an unorthodox structure and eccentricity that intrigues me. Why is it that I’m drawn to these kinds of bands?!

Despite the attraction, I’ve never been able to fully grasp the intricate sci-fi storyline of the Coheed albums, all of which are based on a comic book series called The Amory Wars written by Sanchez, who even named the band after two of the story’s main characters. One of the reasons may be that while each of the albums represents a part of the narrative, they were released in such a way that the plot is revealed out of sequence. Being concept albums, naturally there are songs that I don’t particularly care for (heck, I didn’t like every track on side one of Rush’s 2112), but for the most part I’m a fan of the band’s body of work.

Coheed and Cambria’s latest release Year of the Black Rainbow is the prequel to The Amory Wars saga and is a bit of a departure from their previous releases, more atmospheric with catchier, more concise songs. The first single “Here We Are Juggernaut” is a good example of all the things I like about Coheed. It is intense and melodic and catchy as all get-out. Originally written as a song about his relationship with his wife, Sanchez says the song has become more a statement about Coheed and Cambria (the band, not the characters; see how complicated this could get?!).

And Claudio plays a Gibson Explorer. I mean, what’s not to like about that?!

Coheed and Cambria - Here We Are Juggernaut

People are under this assumption that we’re purposefully trying to be confusing.
Coheed and Cambria founder Claudio Sanchez, Guitar World, July 2010
Somebody will always come up to me and go, ‘Now, which one are you, Coheed or Cambria?’ Then I’ll say, ‘Actually, my name is Travis.’ And they think I’m joking!
Coheed and Cambria guitarist Travis Stever, Guitar World, July 2010