August 28, 2015 - Is Randy Being Haunted?

It seems that Azkath has found yet another table by the roadside, and is itching to put somebody (me) through it. He seemed sincerely disappointed, in fact, when he asked if I'd been smoking recently, and I responded with "No". To his advantage, it seems that our occasional visitor, Nathan (aka The Brony), actually WANTS to be put through a table! Problem solved, right? Perhaps not... You see, Nathan weighs about 70 pounds soaking wet, and would probably just bounce off anything made from something heavier than balsa wood. Worse case scenario, he'd snap like a twig, and we really don't want that to happen. So, we spent a bit of time discussing ways we could put Nathan through a table without completely destroying him. It was even suggested that I could be the one to put him through the table. Obviously moonsaults and senton bombs are out of the question... I actually suggested elbow dropping him, or perhaps leg dropping. Splashing him would probably kill the guy, so that's a no-go. Of course, the problem of getting me on a surface high enough to pull this off came up. As Azkath put it, most of my springs are pretty much shot. Still, If I got two or three rungs up on a ladder, I think I could effectively get him through with an elbow drop. I mean, if that's what he really wants...

The topic of Century Media's acquistion by Sony came up. Overall, the general consensus seems to be that it may not be such a great idea. I mean, Century is pretty much a giant when it comes to indie labels, and while I'm sure the move was more than financially lucrative, in the long run it will likely be the bands that suffer. Still, there's no saying another label won't rise up to fill that void. Time will tell!

Another debate centered around weather patterns in our area. Granted, we've had our share of brutally hot days, but the point I was trying to make was that Summer weather seemed a bit late in arriving. It just seemed to me that we had a bit of an extended Spring, followed by monsoon season (so much more rain than sun for a good stretch...), followed by the arrival of actual Summer around mid-July. Honestly, I've been saying for years that central New York weather is more or less a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down... For the record, though, the days where it's in the low 80's, with low humidity, are just about perfect. For me, the suffering doesn't begin until the humidity goes over 60%, and the temperatures spike at 90 or above.

We played a new Iron Maiden track, "Speed Of Light", from the new album The Book Of Souls, which is now available as of this writing! General consensus...the track is okay, but not among their best songs. Honestly, the video is actually cooler than the song. This actually led to the question of when Josh (probably the biggest Iron Maiden fan on the planet) started listening to Maiden. Seems that Josh started getting into them during the time that Blayze Bailey was replacing Bruce Dickinson on vocals. I should note that for many, this is widely considered Iron Maiden at it's lowest point. Not that Blayze is a terrible vocalist. In all honesty, while those two albums he was on will never be among my favorites, there ARE actually songs on them that I liked...not many, but a handful. And, if you take the time to peek at YouTube to listen to Blayze singing some of the Paul DiAnno-era Maiden tracks, he actually sounds quite good singing those songs. But...he just couldn't cut it when it came to singing the Bruce Dickinson-era songs. And let's face it, not many people could have possibly filled those shoes. The important thing here is that Josh got into Iron Maiden and liked them enough that he visited the back catalog, thereby discovering the band at it's best. Which is as it should be!

The last item of note that I'll be bringing up this week is that I'm pretty sure Jeffie's ghost is haunting me. It's been a couple months since I killed the last one, and Azkath insists that he hasn't cloned anymore, because it's too much of a hassle, especially when we keep killing them off. But, seriously, I've had moments where I've looked out the window of my second story apartment and seen him on the sidewalk, just staring up at me. And I've also gotten phone calls that consist of nothing but laughing and giggling that sounds way too much like Jeffie to be anybody else. And, yeah, considering that Jeffies started out as faulty clones of Azkath, it would be really easy for him to PRETEND to be Jeffie, just to bust my balls. And this is something he absolutely WOULD do...except, he insists that it isn't him, and I believe him. Honestly, the guy's way too damned busy to resort to such methods.

- Metal Wulf

Playlist

Ghost - Mummy Dust
Blood Divisions - The Morgue
Children Of Bodom - I Worship Chaos

Defeater - Spared In Hell
Eye Of Solitude - Obsequies
Renaissance Of Fools - On Your Knees
For Today - Broken Lens
Soilwork - The Phantom

Kobra And The Lotus - Sign Of The Gypsy Queen
Graveyard - The Apple And The Tree
Gentlemans Pistols - The Searcher
The Sword - Ghost Eye
Venomous Maximus - Angel Heart

Wolfheart - Storm Centre
Ramming Speed - Break The Chain
Butcher Babies - Blond Girls All Look The Same
Dark Sermon - Garantua
Pentagram - Close The Casket

Ahab - Red Foam (The Great Storm)
Cretus - The Leader
Bullet For My Valentine - Army Of Noise
Feed Her To The Sharks - Buried Alive
Soulfly - Bethlehems Blood

Nazgul - In The Light of the Blood Moon / Winter Solstice
Age of Shadows - Desolate One
A Million Miles from Broadway - Killing the Phoenix
Ire Clad - Brothers in Arms

The Horde Of Torment - Blood Justice
Wrathchild America - No Deposit, No Return
Morbid Angel - Where The Slime Live
Eudoxis - Metal Fix
Carcass - Corporal Jigsore Quandary

Revival - Out Of Step With The Times
Terror - Feed The Rats
Sinister - Necrophiliac
The Black Dahlia Murder - Re-Faced
Ancient Spell - Eternal Embers

Iron Maiden - Speed Of Light
Mutoid Man - Deadlock
Lamb Of God - Anthropoid
Lynch Mob - Dirty Money
To The Pain - KillZone

Cattle Decapitation - Pacific Grim
Gutted Alive - Consumed By Carnage
Million Miles From Broadway - Murder Cloud
Metal Allegiance - Dying Song
Clutch - X-Ray Visions

Crotchduster - Mammal Sauce
Helen Money - Radio Recorders
Chemical Burn - Crush Your Ego
Cain - Earth's Extinction
Siren's and Sailors - Personal Hell (Page 394)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Waiting for Blood
Hate Eternal - The Stygian Deep

The Oxford Coma - Daisies