I just finished a book I borrowed from a friend, called “Hell bent for Leather – Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict”. Sounds promising, eh? The sleeve says that the author was a metal fan for about 15 years “and he is not proud of it”. Sounds like the guy stopped listening to metal at some point, eh? And he did.
The books starts pretty promising – how the author heard his first metal song (by AC/DC) at the age of 10, how he came to listen to all the classic metal bands, how he started one band after the other with other guys. His autobiography is sprinkled with metal journalism – chapters on various types of metal, on guitars, on when to play a solo, on how to behave at a festival like Donington. It’s all there. The only problem I had with this book is this: The guy’s a poser.
Let me explain that. First he encounters AC/DC and declares them to be his favourite band (nothing wrong with that). He tries to get a hold on every AC/DC album out there. Then, he discovers Iron Maiden – favourite band, yay! After that – Kiss (nothing wrong with THAT at all, mind you). Favourite band, again. See the pattern? The guy switches favourite bands just in the same way other people change their underwear every day. Throughout the book, he keeps alluding to Nirvana – specifically Kurt Cobain – having killed Heavy Metal. He tells us about his wild youth, how he dropped out of college, how he started to take drugs, how he moved to London to become a Glam Rocker.
Most of the time, the book’s pretty entertaining to read, and some parts had me laughing out loud – for example the chapter on keyboards: “If Lemmy saw a keyboard, he’d vomit. Slayer couldn’t even pronounce the word, let alone plug one in.” That’s just hilarious – when reading it I pictured Tom Araya and Kerry King struggling with the word “keyboard” and trying to plug one in. That’s the good stuff this book is made off.
However, there are downfalls. The author goes on and on about how to behave at a festival (in this case: Monsters of Rock at Donington) – and at the same time admits he’s never been to Donington at all. In fact, the only metal concerts featuring in this book – the only two concerts the guy ever saw, it seems – are Ozzy Osbourne, supported by Ratt, and Guns ‘n’ Roses. That’s not much – not for a metal addict, right? Also, the guy falls in love with Glam Metal – nothing wrong with that, I love it as well, but throughout the second half of the book, he keeps going on and on about how Glam Metal bands should look like and how he tried to become a Glam Metal God himself. Then, Nirvana come along – and he accuses them of killing metal. Hey guy, wake up! The only thing that died in the 1990s was Glam Metal – real metal (like AC/DC, like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and the lot) did survive until today. Didn’t you notice?!?
The worst part for me were the last chapters. He describes a documentary about metal, featuring guys like Lemmy from Motörhead, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from Kiss etc. – guys in their 50s by the time. And he claims THAT THESE GUYS WERE RIDICULOUS AND EMBARRASSING!!! Come on! You claimed to be the greatest Kiss fan on earth earlier on and all of a sudden you think Simmons and Stanley are embarrassing?
It becomes worse after that. Even though he constantly accuses Nirvana resp. Kurt Cobain to have killed metal, he admits he actually loved them. The ultimate moment that convinced me this guy was a poser was when he stated that he actually turned away from metal because it was dying and that Primal Scream were a lot better. He had, in other words, “grown up” and become a square. Nothing more, nothing less. “Oh, it was just a phase, I’m mature now” – not in the book but that’s the gist.
As I said, the book starts very promising and is very entertaining to read – most of the times. During the second half, it deteriorates simply because the guy doesn’t seem believable any more. He’s switching favourite bands all the time. He’s never been to a metal festival. He’s seen only two metal bands live. He has a lot of knowledge as far as metal is concerned. Still. He’s a poser. And guess what? Grunge is dead. Metal is not.
I’ve stated in my last entry that things sometimes happen pretty fast, especially in journalism – you always need to be up-to-date, react quickly to new developments, get the news out and such. But sometimes things happen a little too fast for my taste. For the last nine months, I’ve been writing for a travel magazine which was a lot of fun, actually – I got to travel through Austria, stay in awesome hotels for doing my research, and I was allowed to write cool articles without any restrictions whatsoever. Shortly before Easter, things got a bit rough, though, and we were all quite anxious whether the magazine would make it or not – being new in the market with only three issues out there and potential clients having not much money to invest, things looked rather bleak. Nonetheless, I went to Burgenland for a one-week-research (golf – a lot of fun, actually! -, wellness, Nordic Walking and such), thinking that maybe upon my return the magazine might have died. And guess what. It did. I was offered the opportunity to work for the company but online, i.e. write articles for an online platform. There were several reasons why I turned this offer down, one being that I just didn’t feel comfortable with the job description – the idea was that I went out to towns and villages, gathering material about them and writing an article about them. No big deal, really, and not much different from what I’ve done before. But here’s the catch: Only articles the towns and villages paid for would be published. So it all depended on the money. Again. With the demise of the magazine, I couldn’t bring myself to believe in the online magazine – I simply couldn’t believe that what hadn’t worked in print would work online. Maybe time will show that I have erred but at present, it felt best to pull out and go jobhunting again. I still feel this was the right decision and am quite comfortable with it. Also, I already have several job applications out there; more will follow and I’m sure that another job opportunity is just lurking around the corner, waiting for me to grab it.
Speaking of things and people gone too soon, not only the demise of the magazine shocked me numb last week – ok, “shocked” might be too strong a word here because I felt it coming. Anyway. Last week held another bad surprise in store not only for me but for metal fans all over the world – Type O Negative bass player, singer and frontman Pete Steele died surprisingly, supposedly of heart failure. No warning there, just rumours in the morning of April 15th and the band’s confirmation later that day. Now, I’m not what you may call a huge Type-O-fan; never have been. But I loved their music and Steele’s voice, and my first thought when reading the news was “No way. This sucks. Must be another hoax like they put up in 2005. Can’t be true”. Unfortunately, it is true so let me cite Iron Maiden before finishing this entry: Only the good die young, all the evil seem to live forever.
While writing this, I’m still thinking of an appropriate title for this posting simply because it’s very hard to describe in only a few words what – or rather: who – happened yesterday. Let’s just say that I saw one of the best concerts in my life – and if my friends hadn’t told me about it resp. gone off and bought the tickets I might just as well have missed it. By now you might be wondering what/who I’m talking about. Just in case you might think I went to see Lady GaGa who performed in Vienna yesterday: No. I’d rather drop dead than go to one of her shows. Instead, I preferred and enjoyed the absolutely amazing, stunning and awesome concert by Tarja Turunen. What an amazing performer and outstanding, talented singer. Even though she’s no longer with Nightwish, she clearly has a lot of fans – the venue (Szene Wien) was crammed with people who just couldn’t get enough and cheered her on. Tarja herself was obviously in a very good mood, smiled a lot, kept blowing kisses to the audience and clearly had a good time herself. I must admit I was surprised that she rocked – I had listened to some of her solo material before and thought it was rather calm so I expected an equally calm evening. I was mistaken – the tour’s title “Summer Storm” turned out to be very appropriate. After 1,5 hours, my clothes were dripping with sweat (have I already mentioned that we have a really, really, really hot summer in Vienna this year?) – and not just because the temperature in the room was about 40 °C This woman is absolutely wonderful; if you ever get a chance to see her live, be sure not to miss out on this great experience. Clearly one of the best concerts so far.
Monday, May 12th, 2008 A.D., will forever be one of the most memorable days in my life. Because for the first time ever (and probably for the last time, given their age) I’ve seen KISS live on stage. It’s been over ten years since the band favoured Europe with a tour; since they’re celebrating their 35th anniversary this year, the band obviously thought it was about time to enter European stages again. And so they played in Vienna for the first time in, well, years. It was almost perfect. They blew everybody away – not only because they had lots and lots of pyrotechnics but by their sheer presence and power. Remember: These are guys in their fifties, almost sixties. I know – The Rolling Stones are much, much older. Still. I’m always impressed when guys who could be my dads have more energy and fitness than I do.
KISS played for about 2,5 hours; their setlist included the complete “Alive”-album – those of you who are familiar with the album know what gems are featured on it. Starting with Deuce and Strutter from their first album, the band played classic after classic, including Hotter than Hell, Firehouse, Parasite, C’mon and Love Me, Rock Bottom and Black Diamond. Of course, we also got to hear Rock and Roll all Nite as well as Lick it Up and Detroit Rock City. I told you: almost perfect. Almost, because good old Paul seemed to have some issues with his voice during the last bonus tracks. He didn’t manage to reach the higher-pitched sections of the songs anymore but to be honest: I was so fascinated and enthusiastic that I barely noticed.
There are lots of memorable things about this concert. Of course, Mr. Simmons spit blood and took to a little platform high above the stage, suspended only by strong wire. He spit fire as well and did, of course, the tongue thing – we got everything we expected and more. One of the coolest moments was probably all the people in the hall singing Happy Birthday for drummer Eric Singer who turned 50 that day. Sounds old for a rock musician? Au contraire – at 50, Eric is still the youngest member of the band – sort of the pet of the family. Maybe that’s why Paul kept referring to him as “our little pussycat” respectively “catboy”. Also, Eric got to sing a couple of songs which he did surprisingly well. Each member had his very own moment – Tommy Thayer got to do a long guitar solo, including him “shooting” fire from his guitar, Gene had his blood-spitting demon-moment, Eric entertained us with a drum solo. And Paul, as a special treat, also took off and floated over the heads of the audience, just to land on a small platform in the middle of the hall where he kept on performing. And he smashed his guitar while Gene and Tommy were being elevated on platforms, playing on. Yeah. Perfect entertainment and rock ‘n’ roll for only 60 euros – sounds like a lot of money but it was definitely worth it. To the very last cent. Not convinced? Here’s a video on YouTube some nice person calling himself “arashderkiller” decided to share with the rest of us:
Oh. I’ve almost forgotten the most important thing – ok, maybe not the most important but a funny thing: We decided it would be fun to paint our faces as well. Here are some pictures of what that looked like:
The first picture shows the four of us already dressed up and ready to rock; from right to left: my boyfriend Werner, my sister Steffi, our friend Andi (who refrained from painting his face due to a case of death in the family) and myself. The second picture was taken after the concert – you can probably tell by Steffi’s tired eyes. She actually chose Eric Carr’s make-up – not because she’s such a huge fan of him but because she didn’t want to look like “our little pussycat”. And Gene and Paul’s make-ups were already taken. Andi had planned to look like Ace Frehley but, as I already said, refrained from doing so in the end. But his Peter-Criss-shirt looks great as well, eh? The third picture shows Werner and me posing – yes, we’re good at it And if KISS should ever return to our stages – they announced they’d be back next year but we’ll have to wait and see – we’ll paint our faces again. Even if some bimbo should call us “superfreaks” again. To hell with it. This is KISS.
This woman is absolutely wonderful; if you ever get a chance to see her live, be sure not to miss out on this great experience. Clearly one of the best concerts so far.
And if KISS should ever return to our stages – they announced they’d be back next year but we’ll have to wait and see – we’ll paint our faces again. Even if some bimbo should call us “superfreaks” again. To hell with it. This is KISS.
