These are all normal folk trying to get some money together, to produce some really great art and represent the DC music scene. Fortunately there’s this miracle of a website called Kickstarter where artists can fundraise for projects, and we have an opportunity to help them make this album happen. I’ve already put down put down $25, which gets me a physical copy of the album when it comes out, and it feels good to know that I’m supporting artists directly and helping to make our culture grow just a little bit bigger and better. I’d encourage everyone who’s into indie music, or into art at all, to support Exit Clov’s new record. It’s an easy way to participate in the scene, and this record is going to be bomb.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exitclov/exit-clovs-brand-spankin-new-record

This time around, to celebrate our local cultural heritage here in DC, I used audio samples from classic Duke Ellington Songs and reconstructed them to form the melody. And for the video, what location better sums up our city’s glorious past, present, and future better than Ben’s Chili Bowl. The juxtaposition between old and new, musically and visually, to me represents how as young artists we’re inspired by our forebears and are re-interpreting the same urge to create that each generation has.

The official release party and screening will be at the Funky Formal, Saturday October 15th at 9pm. It’s at the Load of Fun art gallery in Baltimore, W. 120 North Ave. Dress formal up top but keep the footwear to sneakers, cause there’s gonna be dancing, art, live music, food, and all manner of funk.

I’ll venture a brief introduction where none is needed – Symphony X is a band from New Jersey that specializes in one thing: keeping it real. I’ve been a fan since my friend and fellow guitarist Jaime introduced them to me, around 2001 when Live On the Edge of Forever came out. I saw them play twice on their Odyssey tour, and more recently I saw them play at Jaxx in VA promoting for their new album – and the real-ness was palpable. The new album was just released in June; considering it’s been 4 years since their last album, Paradise Lost, the anticipation for this one was considerably huge. I’ve been immersing myself in it for a while now, and was recently inspired to write a full-on piece for it. While doing research, I noticed that the amount of in-depth commentary out on this album wasn’t as high as I thought this work deserved. So I decided to publish the analysis that I reflexively performed while listening to what has been the focus of my musical nerd-dom for weeks, Iconoclast.

The album’s theme has been described as “Man vs Machine,” which is a broad concept and I’ll try my best to not conflate the band’s opinions on their music with my own guesses on their work. The concept immediately reminded me of what is one of my favorite songs of theirs, Church of the Machine. The timing of this album coming out couldn’t have been more perfect for me to appreciate that concept - a couple months ago I read Neuromancer by William Gibson, the progenitor of the Cyber-punk genre. My favorite pair of sneakers these days are my Alien Stompers, the pair that Sigourney Weaver wore in Aliens. I just need to strap those shoes on, pop in this album, watch Ghost in the Shell, and I’ll have myself a full blown cyber-punk-athon (*NERD ALERT*). They executed the theme musically using some sounds that are new to the band - some quasi-industrial sounding, metallic, inorganic noises. Visually they had the same artist who did their last album cover, Warren Flanagan, do a nice piece that you could go on for hours about, but I’ll summarize here as a darker version of the birth of Robocop. Lyrically, the album covers a broad spectrum of commentary and imagery about modern living and our relationships with machines. It all ties together seamless and effortlessly, a product of the thorough writing and production process that went into this work. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about Symphony X taking too long to write an album, but I will be the first fan to loudly proclaim that I’ll cheerfully wait another 4 years for another product of equal - or no doubt, better quality. Take 5 years for the next album why don’t you, and just shatter my concept of music entirely.

The title track, which is also the first track on the record, sums up the cyber punk man vs machine aesthetic to me perfectly. After a mechanical sound and some strings that swell and fade, we’re left with a fast repeating piano riff – except an effect has been applied. My best guess is that the effect is bit reduction. For those unfamiliar, bit reduction takes a normal audio file and simplifies it by reducing the bit-length, which reduces the audio quality and creates distortion. Back in the good old days, we were playing Nintendo games that had awesome soundtracks, but whose audio quality was limited by the console’s 8-bit capabilities. This created a distinct distorted or unclear sound that often approximated real life sounds such as explosions, voices, or musical instruments. As technology progressed, we got 16-bit consoles, 64, and now 128, which pretty accurately imitates real life sounds. So as the piano riff on the intro to the epic title track fades from a distorted bit reduced quality to a normal grand piano sound at full bit length, we see an audio transformation from old computer technology sound to a quality that imitates real life. A transformation from machine to man, shall we call it?

On my first listen through the album, the word I thought of was: anthemic. Compared to their earlier work, the proportion of progressive elements is less I would say, and the proportion of sing-along-able lyrics and simple but powerful riffs are higher. This album is less of an esoteric concept album that tells a story, and more of a well-written metal punch in the face of an album. This could be misconstrued as dumbing down the music, or even pandering to a more mainstream audience. But accessibility is a really important point to consider for any artist who’s ever focused on deeper meaning in their work.  Some art you can enjoy at face value, and some art actually provokes you to think. I personally tend to prefer heady material - I can appreciate art that I don’t understand at first, but after some thought I can uncover a meaning behind. It makes you feel like you’ve discovered something, like unearthing a lost treasure. Essentially, you get what you put in, and when you put some effort into understanding art, you get more enjoyment out of it as well. That said, as an artist creating thought provoking art, it’s easy to dig yourself into a niche and end up creating enigmatic pieces of cryptic recluse art – the kind no one understands except for you and the bats who live with you in your hermit cave. In fact the balance between making art that has meaning and inspires thought, yet keeping it accessible to anyone who’s interested in enjoying it, is extremely difficult. It’s much more challenging than creating a piece that caters exclusively to one small niche of society, which is what many might consider to be ‘keeping it real.’ If you can successfully create a piece of art that’s true to yourself, has deep meaning, and can be enjoyed by a person from any walk of life who’s willing to give it some thought, then not only are you a master of your art, but you may also be invigorating it by broadening its audience and legitimizing a possibly marginalized art form or subculture to educated but previously unaware listeners. I think Symphony X fully appreciates this consideration, and has executed it masterfully on this record.

I watched an interview with Russell Allen recently, and he spoke about the writing process on this album. Ronnie James Dio, a legend in metal, passed away as Iconoclast was being written, and he spoke of how that affected his creative process. If I had to guess a particular song that invokes the spirit of classic metal, I would say Bastards of the Machine captures that aesthetic for me. The straightforward hard hitting riff in the verse, perfectly synched with the kick drum, and the lyrics that speak directly to the audience, engaging them in a very non-epic and intimate way, remind me of a classic subculture where the artists could speak to their community and have a direct exchange with them about real life issues.

Lyrics are one point that I don’t always connect on with Symphony X. On Prometheus I think the verses present emaculate imagery for the man vs machine concept, and Russell Allen’s delivery is killer. But there are moments on the album that aren’t as strong, particularly on the title track. I feel the same way about the chorus on Iconoclast as I do about Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. I mean, it’s pretty awesome, but I don’t exactly feel intellectually stimulated. I can put my pretentiousness aside and still enjoy the lyrics, and I can see the appeal for the words lending an anthem quality to the song. The titles of the songs on the album I think are over-the-top awesome, and provide an excellent foundation on which to build upon lyrically. I just wish that some of the lyrics would made me think as hard as the rest of the music does. If there were lines that made me question things, commented on some social issue, or presented the album concept in an indirect way that required me to analyze it to understand, I would feel all the more engaged. Surely William Gibson could have provided material for inspiration. I’d guess that the majority of Symphony X listeners are more than capable of that level of thought, and I’m sure they would appreciate lyrics that respect their intelligence and challenge them to use it.

Iconoclast is an almost 11 minute epic mechanical beast of a song. This certainly is not the most easily digestible song on the album; so while clearly Symphony X can write tracks that are quickly graspable for listeners, they just don’t give a crap and put the craziest song first anyway. That’s ballsy, mad props for coming out like that. There was also a tough decision that had to be made when coming up with the tracklist for the shorter single disc version of the album – some songs from the full-length double album had to be cut. I realize that this would be like choosing which of your children you’d offer up to the cyborg army to save the rest of your family from destruction, but I think I would have chosen a slightly different selection of offspring to save. I agree that Lords of Chaos could be thrown to the cyborgs, but I think Light Up the Night should’ve been spared from the cyber-wrath. It has a really well written melody for the chorus, and the riff during the bridge in the middle, with the distorted vocals in the background, is straight vicious. As far as epic tracks to conclude the album go, I can see how When All Is Lost wins out over Reign in Madness – it does have a pretty killer organ that takes me back to the Zeppelin ‘Your Time is Gonna Come’ level of rocking, and is possibly a better balance on the ballad end of the spectrum. But I think Madness ranks higher than Heretic on both the sing-along factor, and riffs-that-hit-like-a-punch-in-the-throat factor. Plus it has this sinister piano break down. I actually think Heretic would have been my first choice, of distractions to toss to the army of Terminators while the rest of the family of metal songs make their escape into the resistance network’s system of underground tunnels.

I realize that my point about the lyrics contradicts the point I made earlier about the importance of crafting a meaningful but accessible album. And so my imperfectly human nature is revealed, through cyberspace on a network of machines, that probably carried you here from facebook. Rather than claim some sort of authority on any subject, I hope this piece merely inspired you to think about the concept, the album, and art and humanity in general, so that you might form your own opinion, humanly flawed as it may also be. To conclude, thank you Symphony X for this album and all the ones before it, for endless inspiration, and for memories beyond description.

Thursday June 9th | 5:30-7:30 | 1900 K St NW Rooftop

JASW Beer Garden

Being in Japan years ago was a huge learning experience. One thing I still think about is, sometimes to understand yourself, you have to look somewhere else. You can learn a lot about what makes you special, by seeing what the rest of the world looks like. Things you thought were given, accepted, universal, are sometimes more unique to you than you realize when your world is all you know. When I was younger, I thought everyone knew about Gogo. I thought everyone knew about Old Bay.

I also thought that, children shouldn’t talk to strangers, because the world is a dangerous place. Except when I got to Japan, I noticed Elementary school children can ride public transportation to school by themselves. I remember it dawning on me – someone needs to take care of this lost child! And I thought to ask her where she was going and where her parents were, before realizing the train was full of other children doing just the same. I also remember a male friend of mine stopping a girl riding by on a scooter in the middle of the night, and hitching a ride with her across town. I once was lost and had a complete stranger approach me and spend 2 hours with me helping me find where I was going, all after the last train had stopped running for the night. All these things happened not in a small town, but in the middle of the metropolis of Tokyo. The world isn’t a dangerous place – some parts are, but Japan is not.

There’s so much I want to say about that place. I could write volumes on end. There’s lots of things we can all do to help them right now, and one thing I wanted to do was create a reminder for us. I want to remind us to keep them in our thoughts, and act on opportunities to help when we can. But I also want to remind them. In the same way that I was able to learn about what makes my home special through their perspective, I want to show them how they are special – and that I have full and utter confidence that their home will be restored to its natural beauty, and that they have all our undying support.

Kaifuku means to restore. I just want to add one more reason to be reminded of that place and the people there. The mixing and mastering was done by Cam One, at Beat.Clause.It Studios. The art was done by Joelle Nicolette. Please enjoy it, think of that place, and act if you can.

OnBeat will be having tables at a couple different events around town, where we will be selling the album art on full color 8×8″ cards for framing, along with download cards for the song. All proceeds will be going to Red Cross. If you haven’t already, please donate a dollar or more to the Red Cross in exchange for downloading the song here.

Please look out for opportunities to come and support, or find others on your own.

- charlie

Kaifuku

onbeat.org

Thanks to DJ Fleg for spinning last time, this time it’s Dadeo on the tables. This time there will also be an exhibition battle between LeezyRock (Arrive to Defy) and JhonYi (Deadly Venoms Crew). The idea for this jam is to build a stronger bboy community, and part of that is battling each other and gaining experience. For readers who aren’t obsessed with bboying: these two dancers will show up, and at some point in the night, one of them will call the other out, and they will battle for as long as they can last. There won’t be any judges, no prize money, no brackets, no tie breakers. Just a chance to rep yourself, your crew, gain some knowledge and build bonds within our bboy scene.

Come out to witness a living growing underground culture, for free in our hometown.

1525 Newton St NW Washington DC 20010.

7-11pm.

This Sunday May 29th I will have the honor of playing guitar with The Sounds of Domestic Living – a duo made up of Susan and Emily from Exit Clov. The show will be at the annual Passport to Taiwan festival in Union Square, Manhattan. I’ll be backing them up while they perform songs from their upcoming album – a collection of new interpretations of traditional Taiwanese music. I’m a huge fan of embracing traditional culture and making it relevant for the present generation, and they’ve done an excellent job with a wide range of adaptations of genuine Taiwanese musical heritage.

I haven’t played guitar at a show in years. I broke out the old lady, the same piece I played all the way back in middle school, my faithful Fender Mustang, and she is ready for action. Some brushing up on those strummin skills was required, but I’m excited to get out and embrace an old passion once again. Really I’m lucky to have the opportunity to play with such talented musicians, and I’m inspired to start playing more and revive this creative outlet for myself.

The festival is free, from noon to 5pm this Sunday in Union Square. There will be music, dancing, art, and some bomb Taiwanese food. What more could you want.

A flier?

I’ll give you a moment to recover.

This performance for me reaches that level of mind-blowingness where when it comes time to discuss I don’t know where to begin. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Orientarhythm is about “Japanese Cool.” Katsumi would like to essentially, show us what is cool about Japan, in the context of today and our globalized world. The story about how he came up with this idea - and discovered his own style – is inspiring. After spending years mastering hip hop dance, and doing his best to perfectly emulate the American hip hop style (down to the fashion, attitude, everything), he was confronted by an American dancer whom he respected greatly. This dancer told him, his moves are great, his style is perfect, but where are ‘you’? Where is Katsumi? His own identity was not being expressed, it was being ignored. Katsumi realized that mastering the principle was not enough, and decided to throw it away in pursuit of his own style. This method of learning the principle, following the principle, then forgetting the principle is a fundamental concept for self-expression for which I’m grateful to Bruce Lee for articulating so well.

In this video, you can see Katsumi. You can see Japan, you can see karate, you can see the zen monochrome, the yin and yang of the shadows – space and form. You can hear the three-stringed shamisen, the fue flute, and the importance of silence and stillness. You can see nunchucks.

You can also see however the American influence: the funk styles, hip hop, the electronic beats, and the giant glowing neon skeleton (I’m claiming that as American, deal with it). The concept is beautiful and I think it’s perfectly executed in this performance. Plus Katsumi is an amazing person and performer and sells the whole show so well. I’m immensely proud of him, and wanted to share this latest work of his with everyone.

Learn more about Orientarhythm at http://www.orientarhythm.com/. They were sorely missed at the Cherry Blossom Festival this year, and my heart as well as many more go out to them in support for the recovery from this year’s tragedy.