Five & Five on Friday, 8/4/2023

Bandcamp Friday babyyyyyyy

Happy Friday! Congratulations on making it to the end of the week. As you head into your weekend, here are five recommendations and then five micro reviews of albums from my high school CD collection. Maybe you’ll find something new to read, listen to, or do this weekend. See you next week!

1. Today isn’t just any Friday, it’s Bandcamp Friday! Yipee! If you somehow slept through 2020 (good morning! bad news!) Bandcamp Friday is a once-a-month-ish event when Bandcamp forgoes its cut and lets artists pocket the full proceeds of any sales for 24 hours. That means that if you’ve been interested in buying some of my music, today’s a great day to pull the trigger. On my bandcamp page you can find my latest single, a remix album, a full length album, an EP, and a “concept demo”. I even have t-shirts! All of these items have their own place in my heart, and they’d all have a special place in your collection, especially since most of them are NOT available on streaming.

2. As long as I’m in a self-promoting mood… I sent out the latest entry of Drumming Upstream earlier this week in which I covered a song by the Bat for Lashes side project Sexwitch. I had a lot of fun playing this song, but writing thinking about it critically unearthed a lot of complicated issues around cultural exchange and appropriation. Glad to have this one out of the way tbh!

3. I was in Chicago when I heard about the killing of Jordan Neely on the F train in New York and was too swept up with traveling and too shocked by the brutality of the incident to comment on it at the time. Most of what I would have said was articulated better by this recent essay by The Bad Side on n+1. What shocked me most about Neely’s death was that an act of vigilante “justice” like this felt inevitable after months of the city and state’s elected officials stoking fear about the danger of public transportation. The right wing screeching about “violence in New York City” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, except in an ironic twist that violence isn’t tearing at conservative social norms but brutally upholding them. I’ve never felt more tension on the subway than I have these days. Something’s gotta give.

4. On the subject of things other people can explain better than I, I enjoyed this piece by Zachary Lipez reflecting on his experience seeing the recently deceased Sinéad O'Connor live as a teen in the early 90s. I only had the chance to see O’Connor live once, while working at City Winery when she was touring I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss, so I appreciated a ground’s eye view of her heyday.

5. This month it’ll have been a year since I went on a tour longer than three days, and I’m starting to get a little antsy. Luckily, my fellow drummer/blogger Julian Fader has started up his own tour diary covering his recent run with Remember Sports across the United States. If you too are looking for some vicarious road-doggedness, you should subscribe now and read the first entry here.

Now, onto the five micro reviews. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories back in late 2020, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links so that you can hear the music instead of just taking my word for it.

I by Meshuggah (2004) - Progressive Metal

A single 21-minute long track. Hard not to think of this as a trial balloon for Catch-33, but it’s definitely worth a listen on its own merits. Compared to its even longer follow-up I feels less like a song and more like a DJ mix of different Meshuggah riffs, which is a cool and unique vibe to get from a metal record. Things really start popping off about 10 minutes in.

Ghost I-IV by Nine Inch Nails (2008) - Ambient

I remember listening to this in the car with my parents on the drive to Chicago before my first year of college. Much easier to sell them on instrumental Nine Inch Nails. Much easier to sell everyone on instrumental Nine Inch Nails I guess, given Reznor & Ross’s film score career since. Ghosts is a pivotal NIN record toward that direction, soft launching not just the sound but the process of their work since. It also provided the sample for “Old Town Road”, a bit of musical trivia that will always make me chuckle.

Deadwing by Porcupine Tree (2005) - Progressive Rock

My copy of this album is signed by bassist Colin Edwin and live guitarist Jon Wesley. Wesley even didn’t play on this record, so shouts out to him for being a good sport about signing it. I picked this album because of the Opeth connection, but kept playing it because of Gavin Harrison’s drumming. He’s one of my biggest influences for sure. I love the way this record sounds, if there were a 40 minute version of it built around “Arriving Somewhere” I would listen to it all the time.

Nightfall on Middle Earth by Blind Guardian (1998) - Power Metal

A rock opera about The Silmarillion. That I own this should tell you everything you need to know about my social life as a teen lol. Once you get past how silly this all is there’s a lot to enjoy. Great melodies, lots of vocal harmonies, and Queen-esque lead guitar. Really though, the silliness is half the fun. I love that people feel inspired to go this hard for such a nerdy premise.

From Mars to Sirius by Gojira (2005) - Metal

I bought this after Jack Greenleaf and I had our minds completely blown by Gojira’s live show when they opened for Children of Bodom. Seemed like we weren’t the only ones. After that tour Gojira steadily became one of the biggest names in metal. This is still a great record, heavy as all get out but with real songwriting instead of riff salad. Gojira rely a bit too much on fade outs and some of the songs could stand to be shorter, but I imagine its hard to self edit when you’re playing this well.