I'm starting a band

Back when I played in a band (early to mid 90s) finding members to join in your musical escapades was difficult. More often than not, my brother and I simply reached out to people we already knew, and asked them to join our amazing musical projects. This is the relationship equivalent of dating your friends. We never opted for the equivalent of a personals ad (which would be a listing in a local paper, or the dreaded flyer at the guitar shop). Today, pretty much everything has changed by virtue of the darned interweb. Through Facebook, Craigslist, eHarmony and J-Date...people all over the world are gettin' it on with amazing efficiency. Since I always dream of starting a sweet band, I've chosen to use the interweb as my shopping tool, in order to find the ideal members for my new side project. What do you think?





Okay, so he flubs a few notes, and has one of the chords wrong on the main riff...but check out his commitment to the tune. I mean, the guy has an Ipod on a strap strictly for the purposes of practicing. I think he'd be a great addition.





This guy is a winner all the way. Rumor has it, he can crabwalk even better than Robert Trujillo, and he can do so in 7" heels. Beat that!






This girl is proof that the level of musicianship amongst today's youngsters has risen so far it's not even funny. When I was in a grindcore band, anyone who could play a simple blast beat for about ten seconds, or do pinch harmonics was a god. Jesus, times have changed.






Being gay AND Filipino must be super hard...just ask Kirk Hammett, he's already lost most of his hair due to the stress of living that way.

How to invest during times of economic uncertainity

Though widely criticized for being an inaccurate index of the market (since it takes only 30 stocks into account), the Dow Jones has in fact performed very much in line with broader U.S. markets.

As the world struggles through the current economic crisis, Metal Inquisition financial analyst Devesh Bharadwaj takes a closer look at lesser known investment opportunities that may be tempting to metal fans. Is investing in metal a sound choice during these unstable times? Read on to find out.




Avenge Sevenfold autographs make guitar actually be worth less than retail price.



While doing a search on the world wide interweb for used axes as a potential investment, I came across this Schecter Omen guitar. I know what you're saying, Schecter guitars are not exactly the most metal guitars ever (here at M.I. we endorse Jackson of course) but put that aside for just a second. The Craigslist post I found was for a brand new guitar, one that normally retails for $300 and has a list price (MSRP) of $499, selling for only $250. Why so little? The mere fact that it's autographed by the band Avenge Sevenfold makes it actually be worth LESS than retail. Is this drop in price merely a sign of the worldwide economic collapse? Perhaps. Be careful in whose autograph you invest.





Also included in the post is another guitar signed by the band Seether, but they are even less metal than Avenge Sevenfold so I wont even mention them, even though I think its funny that Wikipedia refers to them as a "South African post-grunge band". I had to look them up to see if they were worth mentioning. Man, wouldn't you be bummed if you were in a band and your autograph made things actually decrease in value? It's like having the opposite of the Midas touch, everything you touch turns into complete and utter shit.


Metallica autographs make a horrible guitar worth way too much.


In sharp contrast, a Squire guitar autographed by Metallica is selling for a steep $2,372. How they came up with that number, I have no idea, but that's an incredible increase from its retail price of $169. I don't know why on earth you'd get Metallica to sign a strat, much less a Squire strat, not even a Mexican Fender! Apparently, Metallica's autographs are the only recession proof signatures you can have. Forget stocks, hedge funds or anything else...the way to go is Metallica autographs! Buy, buy, buy!


Gwar "slave" autographs guitar. Price of guitar drops immediately.




Perhaps Metallica is not your cup of tea (and who could blame you), maybe Gwar is more up your alley, and you'd like to invest on something you actually enjoy. Well, you're in luck. What about an autographed BC Rich "Bich" model guitar? It's not signed by a member of the band Gwar though. Oh no. The guitar is signed by a Gwar "slave" (aka roadie). In this case, the nearly new guitar drops in price from $399 retail to $250. At least in this case, the seller (who is the Gwar roadie) is nice enough to give the buyer the ability to choose if they want the autograph on the guitar or not. He writes "*GWAR SLAVE AUTOGRAPH IS OPTIONAL.."


Obituary and Dream Theater drummers sign drumsticks. Price of drumsticks drops. I think.

Note that the Donald Tardy drumstick is dirty. That's because I used briefly it as a stake to hold down some string while doing yard work a few years back.

The bad news about the price of metal autographs not only dropping, but hindering the value of the very items the autographs are on made me worry about my own investments. How has the current crisis affected my Donald Tardy and Mike Portnoy signed drumsticks? I had no way of knowing since my calls to Lehman Brothers went unanswered. Having no other place to turn, I simply asked my wife. I asked her "If I sell these drumsticks in a garage sale, how much do you think I could get for them?", her response was brief "How should I know? Fifty cents maybe? Why are you asking me?". That's all the research I needed. They were now worth worth less than when they were new. I was crushed.

Where does that leave me? Maybe I should look into other autographs as possible investment opportunities during these unstable times. Maybe autographed ticket stubs by the likes of Deeds Of Flesh or Suffocation is the way to go? This guy seems to gave just about any autograph you are looking for. Then again, perhaps I should look into some Lars Ulrich signed drumsticks as a safer investment. After all, you're supposed to buy low, and sell high right? I think anytime after And Justice For All could be safely considered a "low" for Metallica....but will there ever be another "high" in their future? Damn. Maybe there's no safe investments after all.

Depressing trends in metal: Cardboard Guitars

Based on the first part of the title of this post ( Depressing trends in metal ), you probably thought that it was going to be about black metal bands wearing corsets and looking like extras in The Matrix. Perhaps you thought it was about guys at death metal shows growling as though they were auditioning to be in the band. Maybe you thought it was about Robb Flynn's disease. As you can see by the rest of the title, however, it's not.

As it turns out, none of these trends compares to the ultimate, and most depressing trend ever. Cardboard guitars. You read right my friends, cardboard guitars. Turns out, they were a crucial part of the NWOBHM scene, and luckily for us, the BBC was there to document this unbelievable moment in metal history, and the great cast of characters that surrounded it. By "unbelievable" and "great" I actually mean "pathetic" and "dry-heave inducing". It all started with a cardboard guitar being used as a prop in a contest to see who was the best headbanger. No, I'm not kidding. When you watch the video, note the guy towards the end of the clip who is all pissed off because record labels wanted to give away cardboard guitars rather than letting headbangers make their own. The outrage!

Watch, be amazed, and depressed by it all. By the way, I would pay top dollar to find out where the main guy who is interviewed in this documentary is today. The poor dope has the personality of a dead moth...so I'm sure he went on to excel in the world of business, so he's probably a C level executive at a major corporation. The strong manner in which his voice projects, and his birdlike physique are the signs of a man with an unbelievable drive and vision. Just listen to him at the end, where he decides that he's too old to learn how to play the guitar, so perhaps he's better off excelling at pretending to play a cardboard guitar. It's like he invented Guitar Hero, he was so ahead of his time!



Watching this video makes me wonder if this is how the rest of the world saw my brother and I many yeasr ago as we toiled away making our (just as depressing) plywood bass guitar. It was a 5 string bass, by the way, since we couldn't decide if we wanted a guitar or a 4 string bass. We compromised on a 5 string bass with a whammy bar.

Trollech: shy wood-elves of black metal

Perhaps this video has already made the rounds among black metal types, I don't know. Since I'm not a poser, I don't really keep with with that scene. I must have just stumbled across this video while I was looking for the latest wigger slam metal or something, I don't know. If you've already seen it, I apologize.

In any case, this is a great video in which Czech band Trollech cavort around in the forest, playing their instruments in the leaves and playing hide and seek. It's really cute. the description says they are "tree hugging black metal," and they seem to be total weirdos, like the black metal version of Karl Beuchner.

Peekaboo!

I was hoping they would all get electrocuted, but no.

Apparently evil wood sprites play Jackson basses just like the guy from Day of Suffering.

I've fallen... and I can't get up!

Here's the whole video if you can bear it: