You Know You're Not In Bozeman When... (Finnish Edition)

In my last post, I covered signs you are not in Bozeman, from the perspective of instead being in Sweden. This time, I'm going to cover signs that you are in Finland, instead of Bozeman, based on the week we spent in Helsinki. If you experience a few of the following, odds are you're in Finland:

- You're looking over transit maps, trying to plan a day trip and you encouner more umlauts than a double bill of Motörhead and Mötley Crüe.

- You can visit a local recording studio (Sonic Pump) and meet both Nino Laurenne (Thunderstone, Hevisaurus) and Teemu Mäntysaari (Wintersun). Better yet, you can hear them playing on soon-to-be-released masters.

- You can visit a different recording studio (Finnvox) where almost all of your favorite metal albums were recorded (including releases from Sentenced, Charon, Nightwish, HIM, Lullacry, Edguy and Stratovarius). Literally, stand in the the room where the drums were tracked...

- You can visit a local music store (Musamaailma) and find a room filled with Bogner, Blackstar, VHT, Krank and Orange amps. No disrespect to our great local music store, Music Villa, but sometimes a metalhead needs to be surrounded by Heavy gear.

- You can walk a couple blocks from your hotel and visit a record store (Record Shop X) that has all those import albums that are marked as "Temporarily out of stock." on Amazon. On the window of the store, you see a concert flyer for Crucified Barbara (Swedish) headlining over Warner Drive (American).

- Apocalyptica is playing in the main tent of city's big festival. You are disappointed because the tickets are already sold out.

- Wandering through town you stumble onto a part of the "200 years as capital" celebration, which includes a massive chain of oversized dominos. They're all stone, no wood involved...

- You visit a zoo, a historical fortress and an outdoor museum, all on islands and all reached easily without a car.

- In less than a week you have great Nepalese, Cuban and Malaysian dinners. You also have a great pasta dinner while watching people eat quick dinners at a table hanging from crane.

- You're at the airport at 6 in the morning, eating a killer croissant when you glance over your shoulder and notice a familiar face. Long blond hair, blond (almost white) long beard and immediately familiar from wall photos at a studio you just visited. Further iPhone digging confirms that it's Marco Hietala (bass, vocals) of Nightwish, grabbing a bite of food before catching a flight. Not long after, you realize that Tuomas Holopainen (keyboards) and Emppu Vuorinen (guitar) are with him. A little more digging confirms they are headed to Trondheim, Norway for a show that night. Yes, that night. You are impressed that they are up early in morning flying two hops to this coastal city in Norway to play a big headlining show. Makes me tired just thinking about it...

There you have it, Helsinki, you rock! Special thanks to Nino Laurenne and Risto Hemmi for taking time out of their busy days to talk to me about the concept and implementation for my next musical project. It's an absolute pleasure interacting with people that know metal, and share my love for great songs and stellar production. For those of you out there looking for a recording studio, and Finland is convenient, or at least feasible, I highly recommend both Sonic Pump and Finnvox!

But that's not new

I have this conversation with myself quite often. Don't worry, I keep it inside my own head most of the time. I lie awake at night trying to figure out what comes next for me musically. I struggle to develop an approach or concept that will drive the next batch of songs and set them apart both from my previous work and somehow allow them to stand apart from all music past and present. I'm not doing too well with those struggles and that bothered me quite a bit until I wrote The Pursuit Of New.

I feel a little better now. See, music can't always be completely new and absolutely unrelated to the music that preceded and surrounds it. Every musical work (and really any creative work) is a melding of influences both internal and external. Just the internal component alone pretty much guarantees that what I create will be different from anything ever created. There never has been and never will be anyone just like me, and if I simply channel who I am into the music, it really can't end up being like anything else. Then, on top of that, if I draw on the music I listen to, a unique, eclectic collection of influences, how could my next works not end up standing on their own?

It's amazing how music works that way. Most music is restricted to 12 notes, often 8 or less. Most popular music leverages 4-6 instruments, including the human voice and even orchestral music relies on a very well-defined, centuries-old collection of instruments. And yet, every song and every performance of that song is unique. Much like the complex genetic and developmental process that guarantees each of us are unique, similarly every musical performance stands alone. There are so many elements even when a power trio gets on stage, tempo variation, slight pitch variation, room response, audience response. Every single song performance is unique.

By the time I come to the table with a song that I've written... By the time I find other musicians to help me capture that performance live or recorded... By the time that performance reaches your ears... It is guaranteed to be unique. It may not be brand new and entirely unrelated to the music I've heard before. Maybe if I chose to play nothing but reggae-infused quarter-tone polka, leveraging only power tools as instruments, then maybe I'd completely distinguish myself from everything that came before. Even that, however, would not be completely unrelated. It would draw on reggae and polka; other musicians have composed with quarter-tones and power tools have been used as tone sources.

The more I listen to and enjoy music, the more I realize it's not about reinventing yourself. Food tastes good not because the latest big-name chef has decided to throw away all known ingredients and cook with only what is mopped off the floor at your local auto repair shop. Nope, tomatoes, potatoes, salt and pepper still taste good after all these years. A chef can cook a unique meal using known ingredients, without needing the chemists of tomorrow to continuously concoct brand new ingredients. Music is the same way, guitars, violins, drums and the human voice still make great music. Not everything needs to be newly synthesized and modeled, but it can be. It's more a question of how you put it all together.

I've got access to all the ingredients I need and can generate something uniquely David. Not only can I, but I will and I look forward to experiencing the results along with all of you. I also look forward to experiencing all of your unique creations. Life is fun when we experience things. That's really what newness is about, it's the freshness of experience. The more we can find in our day-to-day meanderings that we view through fresh, open eyes, the more interesting each day is. Some of those experiences aren't always fun, but the freshness is still a valuable source of drive and stimulation.

While you're out there experiencing each day with a fresh outlook, let me know what you discover. What are the key things that make your day interesting, and what music serves as the soundtrack?

Music Production Analysis - my latest class through Berklee online

Awhile back I mentioned some of my experiences taking Lyric Writing: Tools and Strategies through Berklee College of Music's online program. Even in retrospect, that class was by far the best music-related class I've ever taken. The balance of learning, collaboration and fun was perfect and I discovered that even after a couple of decades ignoring the lyrical part of my songs, I still can express myself effectively in lyrics. Because this experience was nothing but positive, I decided to keep going with Berklee, this time taking a class about music production.

I'm about a month into Music Production Analysis and am once again enjoying the experience. Unlike the lyric writing class, we don't typically have homework every day; it's more like every 2-3 days but in bigger chunks. There's a lot of listening and analysis, trying to really get a grip on the key elements of a musical composition and performance. It's been fun because I regularly need test subjects, and that means my wife and daughter get to listen too and provide their own thoughts and impressions.

I think, though, the real benefit for me, at least so far, is that the course is driving me to listen to a wide variety of music. The focus is on musical productions that had real impact. We've listened to Doris Day, Billie Holliday, the Beatles, Randy Travis and Bob Marley, plus many more, spanning a wide variety of styles and eras. In essence, what I appreciate about the class is that it formalizes a thought process that has lurked in my mind for years.

I've know for quite awhile that my perspective on music was different from many of my peers. That difference is perhaps most pronounced relative to my non-musician friends, but even stands out a bit relative some of the musicians around me. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I love music and that the less I intellectualize my choices in music, the happier I am. Yes, metal and other forms of loud rock are clearly in my wheelhouse, the core foundation of my musical experience. But, I love a song. I love when music can deliver a message or just an emotion and I try hard to simply open myself up to -any- musical piece. What we are learning from Music Production Analysis is that, to be a really effective producer, you have to be capable of opening up in just that way.

Now, more than ever, I will do everything I can to shut off the naysayer in my own head. I will let my heart and my body respond naturally to what I hear and feel in music. Only once I've allowed myself to respond naturally to a piece of music will I let my intellect join the party and start structuring my response. It's not about rules or doctrines, it's just about the music and the response that results from it. The more I embrace that, the better I will get as a musician, recording engineer and producer. In the process, I will also enjoy more music and enjoy music more.

I Am Metal Dad

As a father of 2, I often think back to the experiences I had as kid, the ones that really shaped who I've become and how I approach life. Often what jumps out at me are the times that my sister and I used to visit my dad's chemistry lab at U.C. Berkeley. I remember playing with plastic molecular models and being fascinated by the air and gas valves with color coded caps. I remember the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) room, the centrifuge room and trips up and down the elevator. Most of all, though, I remember interacting with my dad and his students and feeling comfortable in an intellectually challenging place surrounded by a bunch of fun personalities.

Those experiences were a huge factor in the path my life has taken, through my Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry into my career working in Silicon Valley as a software engineer. Being in a creative, exciting and challenging environment and sharing it with bright, motivated colleagues really, for me, is the key to long-term satisfaction. Despite all of that, there's an even more fundamental element to who I am, namely, music. Though I've studied classical, jazz and blues, it wasn't until I discovered heavy metal and hard rock that I really felt at home. There's something about the combination of power and precision that is a perfect match for my typical energy level. Big, bombastic classical works and intricate baroque compositions come close but there's an innate grit and energy to heavy rock that sets it apart for me.

Much like my dad, and really, like any dad that's really engaged with his kids, it's only natural that I share the things I love with my kids. At 10 years, my daughter, and 7 years, my son, are both fully capable of enjoying music and having their own opinions. I have no interest in scripting out their lives, telling them what they should or should not like or do. But I know from my own experience, and from watching dads around me with older kids, there's really no worry, kids will find their own path and stand apart from their parents' interests. At the same time, it's incredibly important to expose kids to all sorts of creative and intellectual stimulation, so they can explore it all and figure out what's right for them. Since metal and other heavy forms of music are key parts of who I am, it makes sense for me to share that with my kids.

My wife and I tend to be open-minded and relaxed about what we let our kids experience. We both think the key is to experience the more mentally and emotionally challenging things (e.g. horror movies, more mature comedies, troubling dramas, etc.) as a family, being very careful about the timing so as to only stretch the kids a little bit at a time, never overwhelming them. We often have some of the most interesting and enlightening conversations after watching movies together, when the topic falls a bit beyond what they've encountered in their lives at that point. As a parent, you never really know whether the experiences you have with your kids translate in any way to other families. We are all so unique, and yet so similar, you it's hard to know when things are uniformly applicable to all and when they are completely restricted to our own personal experience.

Considering all of that as background, I am very careful about how my musical background impacts the kids. Music has been the single, fundamental driving force in my life and I want desperately to share that with the kids. I also want to avoid overwhelming them with my own interests, because it's up to them to find out what's important to them. That eventually filters down to this: I share the music that I love with my kids but leave it up to them to decide what grabs them the most. I also know full well that at any point, one or both of them could decide they have no interest in music or that they prefer a completely different style of music. I have a very good friend and periodic coworker whose kids are just approaching college age. He's also a musician and a big music fan, very broadminded and eclectic but with key interests in Keith Richards, Neil Young and similar singer-songwriters with a little edge. He was very supportive of his boys' interests in music and shared music with them all the time. Somewhere along the way, both boys discovered modern metal and embraced it. They love the really heavy stuff, filled with growling and pummeling energy. That's not at all what my friend loves, but still is reflective of a love for music.

Thus, I must embrace my role as "Metal Dad". It's what I love and what I know. Loud rock and metal are what I play during my radio show at KGLT and what I have to review each week as the Director of Loud Rock. When the kids help me review new releases, prep my show or keep me company during my show, what they hear is all loud rock and metal. I encourage them to be open-minded, to embrace classical and country, pop and polka, to experience it with equal curiosity. But, what I can best teach them about is metal, because it's what I know. I can tell them about the performers, the sub genres and the evolution of the style. Unfortunately, the one thing I can't do very well here in Bozeman is give them the same local music scene that I grew up with. I was able to spend my teens going to local clubs in the Bay Area and to experience first hand the discovery and success of Joe Satriani, Y&T, Night Ranger, Metallica, Testament, Exodus and many more. I was able to see bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, UFO, the Scorpions and Rainbow regularly in the larger venues around the Bay Area. I often went to multiple shows in a week, and my own musical personality grew out of all those experiences. Here in Bozeman, however, it's lucky if we get a metal show every few months and major metal acts do not come here at all.

So, what does "Metal Dad" have to do to keep sharing the metal world with his kids? The same thing folks in Montana do if their kids are on soccer teams, or ski teams or basketball teams: travel. The distances are long in this part of the country, but you accept the knowledge that travel is part of the equation. Although it takes time, two hours of driving around here is a heck of a lot more satisfying than driving two hours in a major metropolis. You can go a long time without seeing another car on the road and the scenery in many parts of the state is absolutely breathtaking. This year it really hit home, it makes no sense to sit here in Bozeman waiting for the metal to come to us. We must seek out the metal. And that's what we will do.

Coming up soon, we'll run over to Billings to catch Halestorm, then shortly after that we head north through Glacier National Park to reach Calgary in time to see Iron Maiden on their big 2012 tour. About a month later, our big summer vacation will take us to Sweden and Finland, sandwiched around an Amaranthe show in Göteborg. And then in early fall, we head over to Salt Lake City to see Nightwish. At the moment, both kids love female-fronted metal bands, including those with a symphonic bent. My son also has a soft spot for hair metal, with Def Leppard as his "go to #1" but he also loves My Chemical Romance.

Metal Dad knows full well that at some point, my daughter may decide that mainstream country is the way to go, and my son might become a shreddin' bluegrass mandolin player. That's OK by me. It's not about the "right music" vs. the "wrong music", it's about the joy of discovery and the comfort of familiarity. If there's anything I can do for the kids, it's to help them embrace the world, the good and the challenging, and embark on the journey that's right for them. In fact, those journeys are already underway and I have the privilege, for now, of tagging along for the ride. It's an awesome experience.

New Loud Rock - mid July 2012

As KGLT's Director of Loud Rock, I now receive a steady stream of new loud rock releases. It's exciting to have a supply of brand new music to review for the station, and I want to start sharing bands and albums with the rest of you. Here's my first installment, reviewing new material from four exciting bands.

Icarus Witch - "Rise"

As a big fan of heroic metal, just a few seconds into Icarus Witch's latest release, "Rise", and I was hooked. Lots of melodic singing, lots of guitar and full of energy; I feel right at home throughout the album. "Rise" stands out to me in that it captures the triumph of heroic metal but remains raw and real (in Tolkien terms, think "more Gimli, less Legolas"). There are definitely technical elements to the album, particularly in some of the guitar work, but Icarus Witch remains far afield from the polish and structure of symphonic metal. As I listened through the album, I was reminded of Riot, Pink Cream 69 and a recent favorite, Lillian Axe's "The Days Before Tomorrow". That's not in any way meant to suggest that Icarus Witch derives from any of those bands; it's more that they capture a similar balance between melody and technique while establishing their own unique rawness and character. "The End" and "Break The Cycle" jumped out at me and "(We Are) The New Revolution" is a classic anthem in all respects.

Baroness - "March To Sea", "Take My Bones Away" (Yellow & Green album July 17th)

I'm really excited for Baroness' upcoming July 17th release, the "Yellow & Green" album. If the two pre-release singles, "March to Sea" and "Take My Bones Away", are any indication, this will be a powerful, well-crafted album, the kind we may look back on in years to come as the band's break out moment. Baroness combines raw energy and dark tonality to create haunting and intense songs. While their overall effect is raw, they layer dirty and clean guitars to create spacious arrangements, punctuated by vivid but realistic vocal harmonies. While listening to "March to Sea" I was impressed by the dynamic variation over the course of the song. Unlike much of the smash-limited, wall of destruction metal these days, Baroness is refreshing because of their willingness to paint a full and varied picture. Check out the two singles and get ready for the full release on the 17th!

Paradise Lost - "Tragic Idol"

Paradise Lost delivers yet another unique and masterful step in their fascinating evolutionary journey. "Tragic Idol" satisfies my love for gothic metal, and fits well in my collection next to the Charon, Sentenced and Poisonblack albums, while delivering an impact reminiscent of Metallica and Systematic. The songs on "Tragic Idol" are dark and mysterious, spacious and yet powerful. The album is gripping much like an intense action drama and worth every minute of its 10 songs. If you enjoy music that balances raw power riding on a layer of intricate texture and aggressive guitar, you should give a listen to "Tragic Idol". If you're short on time, the defiance of "Crucify", the despair of "Honesty In Death" and the deep moodiness of the song, "Tragic Idol" will do a great job of capturing the overall character of the album, whetting you're appetite for a full listen when time allows.

Vintersorg - "Orkan"

Each time I listen to "Orkan", Vintersorg's latest album, I'm more intrigued. Their Viking/folk influences come through clearly on "Orkan" as do brief flashes of black metal. What intrigues me though, is the delicate balance they maintain throughout the album, with an ongoing sense of community and folk quality, yet an overall sense of detail in the arrangement and sonic textures. Fueled by complex, intricate and rough-edged guitars, Vintersorg balances that with a steady dose of keyboards, giving their songs an intense but open feel throughout. Their songs are propelled by sections of steady single-note guitars and big chunky chord harmonies. Their music is both dark and upbeat; for me, it brings the Beowulf saga to mind in both intensity and mood. I've included "Istid" in my last two KGLT playlists, but I recommend listening to "Polarnatten" and "Norrrskenssyner" to get a full overview of Vintersorg's latest release.