A to Z 2k18: K is for King Parrot

Band:  King Parrot
Song:  Piss Wreck
Album:  Ugly Produce (2017)
Genre:  Thrash Metal

King Parrot is...  quite a band.  Really, they're just special.  But I don't know if I'm the best person to tell this story, I'll have my brother Jeff regale you with the story of when he got to see them in concert.  This is one of the best concert stories I've ever heard, so I hope you like it.

****

Jeff here, today's band is King Parrot, and my first experience with them was pretty fun.
A couple of years ago, Cattle Decapitation were on the North American Extinction Tour, and the supporting acts on the tour were Dark Sermon (awesome), Black Crown Initiate (awesome) and-- you guessed it-- King Parrot. At the time, I had never heard of any of them except the headliner--a band that I wasn't particularly a fan of, but thought it would make a good story to say I had seen them.

I turned out to be right, but had no idea why at the time.

Dark Sermon played, and I was an instant fan. Black Crown Initiate played, same deal. I bought albums from both as soon as their sets finished. I'd had a pretty early morning, so I was dragging a little, but I was starting to think it had been a good idea to go to this show, even though I was getting tired.

Then King Parrot started. Oh boy.

I actually missed the first part of their set, I had been outside talking to the singer from Black Crown Initiate (Cool guy, btw). I walk back in, to the sound of Grind-y Death Metal and vocals that sounded to me like a Grindcore frontman on helium. The song ended, and suddenly all the noise gave way to a string of words that had to have been 30% profanity, 30% insults, and the other 40% were what I could only assume to be made-up words. If you've ever heard an Australian person insult someone, you know what I'm talking about, it's a really unique kind of language.

I swear, to this day I have never heard any band insult their audience so much. It was unbelievable. He was using words that I never would have thought could be used as insults but there they were. Being offensive, somehow.

And why? Because we weren't moshing enough. A lot of people were tired, or just not in a moshing mood, like me, and the frontman just WAS. NOT. HAVING IT.

With every pause between songs, there came a new set of insults for how lame we were all being. At one particular break, he pointed at a pair of guys that had been standing in the back, (not far from where I was) and declared that they wouldn't play another note, until those two joined the mosh pit. He suggested that one remove his glasses and place them in his posterior, and called the other "fuzzy looking", in case you were wondering about the specific insults. As they went forward (he did take off his glasses first), I just watched and thought "Man, talking crap on all of us collectively is one thing, but why's he gotta get all personal on these poor guys?"

Oh Boy.

They played the next song, those two guys moshed a little, and as the song ended, feedback was ringing through the guitars, and the singer was glaring at someone.

Someone.

He lifts his hand, not to flip us off (again), but to point at someone.

At me. Shoot.

At first I thought maybe he was pointing at the guy standing next to me, since he hadn't been moshing either, so I pointed at him, questioningly, while maintaining eye contact with the frontman. He continued glaring and pointing, while he slowly shook his head. As it sunk in that he was looking at me, I tried to figure out what my plan of action was, and before I had time to start walking into the pit, some dude freakin' picked me up and carried me forward.

I was panicking, obviously. He carried me forward a lot further than I expected, I thought he was just putting me at the front, how nice of him.

NOPE.
HE PUT ME ON THE STAGE

I scrambled to get off the stage before they would have time to do anything to me, the crowd didn't let me at first, and I briefly thought, "Is this how I'm going to die?" Until they let me back onto the floor and I ran back to the safe spot where I had been standing. And let me tell you, King Parrot didn't like that.
A new barrage of insults and cursing, from the entire band this time. I didn't pay much attention, as I was too busy making sure I was safe.
They played the next song anyway, and during a solo, the singer put down his mic and jumped into the pit.

Hmm, what could he be doing? He was headed right for me. I'm panicking again, what can I do? Fortunately for me, when he got all the way across the floor he was deflected by the dude standing next to me, who was, as it happens, a hero. It wasn't long after that happened that they played their last song, and by some miracle the singer left me alone the whole time.

I was still scared though.

And Cattle Decapitation were ok, I guess.

****

Hope y'all liked Jeff's story, and hope you like the video these guys threw together, even if the music is awful, haha

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A to Z 2K17: O is for Oh, Sleeper

Band:  Oh, Sleeper
Song:  Endseekers
Album:  Children Of Fire
Genre:  Metalcore

Oh, Sleeper are a Metalcore act from Fort Worth, Texas. They're one of my favorites in the genre because they represent the more crazy, chaotic side of the sound, (something a lot of other bands tend to shy away from in it's present form) but without compromising the melodic aspect.

Children Of Fire is an absolutely excellent album, from the writing of the songs to the mixing of each track.  I mean, seriously, this album is one of my favorite mixes of all time, it's clear, it's heavy, and it's tied with Matt Halpern of Periphery for having the best drum sound I've ever heard.  It's certainly my favorite snare sound, in any case.

Endseekers in particular embodies all the sounds that make the album great, which, coupled its killer intro, makes it an excellent kickoff to the album.

This has been a post by Jeff, betcha thought it was Noah.
Nope. Chuck Testa.

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Hollywood Undead - Gangsta Sexy

Band:  Hollywood Undead
Genre:  Rap Rock
Language:  Strong

So today is my brother's birthday!  Hooray, he's 21 now, big milestone, haha.

This song is one that we decided was his theme song a while ago.  It's not his traditional style of music, it's not a band that most people think of when they think of him, it's nothing like the stuff his band plays, the song is just basically about him.

I mean not really, it's not like he's into going out clubbing in suits and getting wasted, but this is his favorite HU album and on the album this is his favorite song.  This is also the only song that'll get him on the dancefloor at a wedding willingly, though we haven't managed to convince any of the DJs to put it on yet.

Happy birthday Jeff, don't do anything stupid till the weekend, haha

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Still Waiting - Breathe Again

Band:  Still Waiting
Genre:  Hard Rock

Yo, so it's kinda bragging time here.  My brother managed to land the lead guitar gig for this group some time last year and has spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing since then.  I'm honestly not really joking when I say I really don't see him outside of work, he's out with these guys so often.

That's not really important, just something I thought I would mention.

Anyway the really cool thing is that they are playing Creation Festival this year.  They managed to swing playing last year but my brother wasn't fully part of the group then so he didn't actually go play with them.  This time though he's been in the group long enough to actually know all of their material and he's gonna be one the stage with the rest of them.

I'm freaking pumped about this as any older brother would be, so I had to tell somebody about it.  I suppose it made sense to tell the entire internet, right?

He's not playing on this track, but they are writing new songs that he has a hand in so there's some more stuff to be hype about.  If you want to see his work you can hear our songs on Soundcloud or his solo stuff on his Soundcloud.

Ludo - Love Me Dead

Band - Ludo
Genre - Alternative Rock

So while yesterdays post was vague cause I was too lazy/tired to write a good one this is like that cause I just don't know anything about the group.  I was driving the other day in my brother's car which has a dead cd player.  It's "hella old" to quote him, so we just had the radio playing.  We're listening to a bunch or older rock songs that are generally making him miserable so we decided to change the station.  Flipped over to Ganon's station and had this song pop up.  We had no clue what it was though, just that we enjoyed it.

Moral of the story:  Jeff's car has a tendency to play music he really doesn't care for except for this song.

Fractionally Human - Hammer Smashed Face

I'm gonna throw some shameless self promotion in here.  This is a song that my brother and I recorded a while ago.  It's a cover of a Cannibal Corpse song and it was insanely fun to do.

I programmed the drum track and screamed at a microphone and my brother recorded bass and 4 layers of guitar.

My only issue with it is that I ended up mixing the vocals a little low, but there's not too much I can do about that at this point.

If you like it the song has a free download attached, just like any of our cover songs.

Soilwork

Jeff here, back again.
Soilwork  are a Gothenburg Melodic Death Metal act who've released 9 studio albums since 1998, and are in the works for another one to come out soon.
As is typical for a band with so many releases, their sound has changed quite a bit since their first, "Steelbath Suicide", in '98.  That's why I'm giving you 3 songs today, to illustrate that change.

We're starting with Bastard Chain from "A Predator's Portrait" (2001).
It's more fast-paced, and much more focused on the "Death" than the "Melodic".

Next up, the title track of "Figure Number Five" (2003)
This album was obviously different, parts of it are strongly focused on the aggression, others more on the groove (See Overload for more of the groove).This is probably the most aggressive track, it also has one of my favorite guitar solos ever.

From "Stabbing The Drama" (2005) we have Nerve.
You can see now that they have built a very different musical identity for themselves than they had had at first, being far more melodically inclined, still with the aggressive riffing, but that aspect of their sound is applied very differently.

Three links is probably enough for now, so I'll leave it here, but if you want to check out "The Living Infinite" (2013) I would definitely recommend it if you like the more melodic side of their sound.

Guest Post: Spiral - Black Dwarf

The internet is probably the greatest human achievement of the last 30 years, since it allows the general population to access to basically all human knowledge and accomplishment, or listen to any music made by anyone, no matter how unknown or underground they may be. Without it, I probably wouldn't have heard about half of the bands that I enjoy.

So behold, through the miracle of the internet, today's band: Spiral.

Spiral is a Post-Rock/Alternative/Maybe-Prog band from Poland. They released their first album (Urban Fable) in 2009, and this past April they released their second, titled Cloud Kingdoms. These guys are currently one of my favorites (I've basically had this album on repeat for the last week), so I'm gonna give you more links than usual.


This is a live performance of "Black Dwarf" from Cloud Kingdoms, just because I like the live version. I'm also giving you the link to their Bandcamp page (which has links to their website, Facebook, etc..) so you can support them, because I think they deserve more attention than they get.





Apologies for the formating problems.  I don't know how to work HTML, but that was the only way to get this video in.  The YouTube search on Blogger is a little lacking but I needed this specific video.

Edit:  Got it to work now, never mind, haha

Guest Post: Chapel - Alcoholocaust

Chapel are a Black n' Roll band from Vancouver Canada, whose sound can best be summed up as a combination of Venom and Motorhead. They formed in 2008 and released their first full-length album, titled "Satan's Rock 'n Roll", in 2012.

You may not have heard of Black n' Roll, so I'll fill you in on that, it's a pretty straightforward combination of Black Metal and Rock n' Roll.

Lyrically, Chapel tend to keep the focus on the important things in life; Rock n' Roll, Alcohol and Satan.

Today's song is Alcoholocaust, which is my favorite song from Satan's Rock n' Roll, not just because it's about booze and genocide, but because it's got a pretty cool bass solo in the intro, and I cannot resist a good bass intro. I mean, listen to it and tell me that's not awesome.

-Jeff

Note: At the end of every month Jeff will make a guest post like this.

GUEST POST: Venom - Sons Of Satan

Today's post is written by Jeff, because spices are the spice of life, and there are a wide variety of spices, and variety is important. But enough of that, let's talk about today's band: Venom

Venom formed in 1979 in Newcastle, England. They released their first album, titled "Welcome To Hell" in '81, and their second in '82, these two albums were very influential in 1980s thrash metal, and death metal as well.

The second album, "Black Metal", became the namesake of an entire subgenre of metal, the sound of which was innovated largely by bands such as Venom and Bathory.

This particular song, Sons of Satan, is my favorite track from "Welcome To Hell".