昨天跟Alber去了Angels & Kings酒吧看The Academy is的William Beckett了，唱得还行。不过我还是更喜欢我的金属&*^%#$%^^###

05年的时候这两支来自瑞典哥德堡的乐队同时拍了两个MV。

Soilwork的Rejection Role, In Flames成员开车举着sellout的牌子气soilwork, 然后soilwork演出时in flames的人来捣乱砸场子。然后两个乐队对峙，打架（打架镜头被略过），镜头直接转换成in flames吉他手脸上带伤，哈哈。

然后in flames的MV trigger是以完全相同的手法拍成。开头Soilwork成员举着posers的牌子气in flames,然后打完架之后soilwork吉他手

一个脸部打伤的特写。

两首歌曲都容易接受，适合做金属的入门歌曲，加入很多键盘为歌曲增加了好听的旋律。两个乐队作为同一种风格，既是竞争对手，平时又是好朋友。

P.S. Peter Wichers当时也在这两个MV里面，演出场景是长头发，不演出时候戴个黑色beanie.

2.21 Mokena, IL
　　上传了一堆演出照片
http://cid-5f1c4a88708555ac.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/soilwork%20swallow%20the%20sun%20darkane%20warbringer%20@%20pearl%20room,%20Mokena%20IL%20Feb%2021?permissionsChanged=1
　　我站第一排正中央，跟我一朋友一起，结果演出场地的人中场休息拿个摄像机拍观众，结果拍到我们这，专门多停留了5秒钟，因为估计平时没见过亚洲女的看金属。
　　然后显示当地两支年轻的乐队表演，乐队名他们用metal的声音喊出来，我没听出来。
　　然后就是swallow the sun,来自芬兰，他们那么旋律，据说很受欢迎，可是我之前没怎么听过，所以在第一排音效不是很好，没听出怎么好，倒是有个吉他手Juha(后来查的名字，他还是乐队主要创作成员），Alber一个劲说他性感。。。于是演出结束我们找他合影了，我还秀了两句我的特烂的芬兰文说：我是一个中国人，晚安（本来想说晚上好，结果记错了就说的晚安），然后他用芬兰语回答了我，我没听懂！
　　然后Warbringer，成员很年轻，都是22岁左右，很thrash, 主唱重感冒坚持演出，中间还呕吐了一地，这是一个他们的大粉丝挤到我旁边跟主唱招相呼应，气氛特棒。只可惜我之前没准备，现场也就能听个节奏和旋律，歌词儿是没法儿跟了。演出后我跟我的花痴女伴alber（她认为主唱sexy这回。。。）找乐队合影，结果找到了他们的吉他和贝斯两个小孩，然后他们看我们亚洲来的，他们加州来的，所以见过很多很多亚洲人，也知道亚洲人照相喜欢V字手势，于是跟我们合影还说"peace",大家一起V字手势。跟 Warbringer名字正好相反，真可爱。
　　倒数第二个乐队是瑞典的Darkane.
　　随后一只Soilwork. 第一曲follow the hollow,我最喜欢这首了。这场地舞台跟观众之间没有护栏，那个大胖子主唱speed老站在舞台最前沿，话筒线老触我脑袋，他还唾沫星子直溅！！！！！！！我还得老闻他脚臭！舞台上面仅是各乐队各主唱们留下的鼻涕，痰，唾沫星子痕迹，他那个话筒线也沾了不少，还老缠着我脑袋。然后我也花痴了一会，吉他手Peter Wichers剪短头发了，还挺帅的，这是我这次演出我个人认为看到最帅的一个人，演出时候看我冲他笑，于是他还冲我眨眼微笑，于是我特兴奋，然后告诉 Alber，Alber也冲他笑，他也眨眼。哈哈，不愧是演出经验丰富的乐手。。。

Today Alber and I went to Pearl Room(The greatest metal venue in Chicago area) in Mokena IL to see Soilwork, with Swallow the Sun, Warbringer, and Darkane.

We easily stood in the middle of the first row, cause metal fans are not very eager to stand in the front when the openers perform. There were two more local bands before the four bands I just mentioned! So six bands in one night, from 7pm to 12:00. Alber nearly fell asleep near the end. Of course, she’s not really into metal. Most of the time, she’s just seeing who’s the hottest guy in the bands, or the audience.

I was gonna try eye contact with band members, because according to some website, band members will smile/wink at you if they think you feed them energy for a show. They always choose some audience who can feed energy to stare at…so it was an experiment.

First two bands are local bands, and quite young, obviously they don’t have much experience on stage, they never look into the crowd(any audience). But the first band, singer looked like Ben Affleck, and the music put on a lot of energy to head bang to.

Second band, the guitar is much much louder than the female vocal. You can’t hear what she’s singing.

Third band, Swallow the Sun from my beloved country, Finland. Keyboard player stare into the crowd like he’s really angry. I’m not impressed with their music. I’m not that into Finnish melodic metal anymore. Alber kept reminding me how hot and fit the guitar player is… http://www.swallowthesun.net/2007/index.php?id=1377    But he never came to the center of the stage, so we couldn’t get a clear enough photo shoot. We later talked to him after the show.

Fourth band, Warbringer, from California. They're more thrash than melodic. Other bands are mostly melodic that night. Alber, again, thinks the singer is super cutehellip;this I agree. At first during soundcheck, I thought hersquo;s a roadie. Their guitar player with ginger beard(which we also later talked to) blinked to a lot of fans, including male fans jokingly during soundcheck. The cute singer was sick like a dog that night, he even threw up during a song on stage. A drunk guy on my right was inarguably the biggest Warbringer fan of the night. Warbringer singer had a lot of interactions with their biggest fans(fans who can sing along and wave their fists).

Fifth band, Darkane form Sweden, I totally remember nothing when I am writing this blog. Their music is so boring and not memorable.

Headliner band, Soilwork from Sweden. Opening song “follow the hollow” , which is the only song from them I vaguely remember the lyric of. The singer was literally standing above me, and spitted all over the place. I was afraid of seeing him since I was afraid of his saliva dropping like rain onto my eyes and face…Their guitar player Peter was standing on the right side of the stage, I smiled at him, surprisingly he winked back, then i happily told Alber, and Alber smiled at him too and got the same result. Hahaha. I think it’s probably the only advantage being the only Asian people in a metal show here. The band thinks it's novelty. Secretly I think Peterrsquo;s the hottest one in Soilwork, now everybody knows the secret.

Peter was the bald one in this video, but during tonight’s show he has short hair.

After the show, Alber and I saw a few band members near the tourbus, we saw that hot guitar player from Swallow the Sun, so we went up to take pictures with him. I finally had the chance to impress some Finn with my super broken Finnish.

First he asked me what my name was in English, I told him in English. So a one liner goes…I spoke in Finnish “Olen Kinalainen”, then he replied back in Finnish, very quickly and long, I didn’t get it. I also said “Hyvaa Yota”. I thought it meant “good evening”, but after i got home i found out it really meant “good night”. Kinda embarrasing. But he corrected my pronunciation with the word “yota”. Haha, he acted like a typical Finn, very quiet most of the time.

Then we saw the ginger kid and the scrawny but cute blond kid from Warbringer. We asked for photos. The ginger suggested the blonde kid that we all shall made the peace sign(how funny!!! Their band name’s Warbringer!) They’re from Cali so they’ve been surrounded by Asians, it’s common knowledge that Asians like the peace sign when taking pictures.

Former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Hanson's Taylor Hanson and Fountains Of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger have formed a new band, Tinted Windows.
The group has recorded its debut album at Stratosphere Sound Studios in New York, which Schlesinger and Iha co-own with Ivy's Andy Chase. The set is expected this spring on a label to be announced.
Tinted Windows will play its first major show at Billboard's South by Southwest showcase, to be held March 20 at Pangaea in Austin, Texas.

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/iha-carlos-hanson-schlesinger-form-band-1003942166.story

For a second I thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but it’s real.

喜欢这个pit!

比如昨晚Buffalo空难，好几个记者围着一位遇难者的弟弟，问人家：What's going through your mind right now? How are your parents taking the news?之类的脑残问题。

还有就是陆地死亡一人，死亡者的两个女性家属都住院了，结果WIVB（一个ABC台的affiliate台 观看地址 http://www.wivb.com/generic/video/news_4_at_noon/news_4_at_noon）的记者问医院的人能不能采访那两人。医院拒绝了，结果那记者还push要采访，最后还是被拒绝了。

可见美国记者也不少脑残的。

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/13/plane.crash.new.york/index.html

昨晚10：20一架continental的由新泽西Newark的飞机在距离降落Buffalo机场还有5分钟的时候，坠毁在Buffalo的一个郊区Clarence Center. 飞机上48人全部死亡，陆地一居民住宅被毁，一人死亡。不知为什么，我听到这个消息还挺震惊的。这种事怎么能发生在Buffalo这个我知道的地方呢？真是感觉有点奇怪。Clarence这个区是个富人区，那边的人都是知识分子，商人，还有我们好多教授都在那个区安家。One Tree Hill的男主角老家也是Clarence, 还是Clarence High School毕业的。另外我记得我曾经跑到Clarence的大电影院看过蜘蛛侠的Imax. 所以悲剧发生在一个人知道的地方感觉是有点不一样。

有意思

Michael Phelps这孩子好像吸傻了，然后竟然向中国fans道歉

再来个daft punk hidden concert诈骗案来龙去脉

http://www.smartshanghai.com/wire/403/The_Whole_Daft_Punk_Thing_is_Getting_Awesome_Crazy_.html

两个大骗子的facebook fanpage

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thomas-Ramirez-and-Andy-Da-silva/49681929532#/pages/Thomas-Ramirez-and-Andy-Da-silva/49681929532