Blog By James

Are you an iPhone user that has always been less than satisfied with the “mug me white” stock headphones? Well then Sennheiser’s MM50 iP phones are the perfect replacement.

They’ve got the inline microphone for making calls and the ever-so-important button that allows you to pause what you’re listening to and/or answer or hang up the phone. The 1/8″ end is very small and will fit into the headphone jack regardless of what case you use. Another plus (for me anyway) is that they’re designed in such a way that it’s just one cable that goes up to your left ear and then continues behind your neck to your right ear. I prefer this to the standard, left and right cables coming down to a “Y” on your chest.

These headphones also sound spectacular. They’re slightly “sweetened” in the low end but not at all in a overwhelming way. It makes casual music listening very enjoyable. If I want a completely honest and “flat” sound, I’ll put in my Shure monitors.

The street price for these babies is about $80. However, Alli and I bought ours from AudioMax in NY by way of Amazon for $37! Scroll down to the “New” section here.

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Warren Ellis‘ “Ignition City” concluded last month and I LOVED IT! I hope that it sold well because I would be thrilled to see more in the future. Check out a preview of the series here.

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Right. Katatonia has a new record out entitled “Night Is The New Day” and those following me on Twitter are probably tired of hearing me go on about it. Well it’s really good and I feel that it easily tops “The Great Cold Distance“ which is where I think they had finally come into their own sound. Check out “My Twin” here, one of the highlights from that album.

In my opinion, one of the major improvements this time around is the drumming. Daniel Liljekvist must have been practicing and gigging a lot between these last two recordings because his playing on this new album is really, really solid. There are a few drumming moments that give me chills. Brilliant stuff.

The feeling I get from “Night Is The New Day” is what I can best describe as a beautiful melancholiness with an underlying sense of hopefulness. It has been wonderfully executed in both performance and production. And the artwork and packaging is just stunning. You can hear samples here and see the video clip for the first single here.

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The new Winger album “Karma”, is ten tracks of pure, heavy rocking, riffy goodness. I love it.

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Living Colour played in DC on the 1st and we were there! Had a great time indeed. It was the “Afro-Punk” tour deal and there were other acts performing as well. Here’s my quick and dirty review…

First band was The Smyrk which were fantastic. I look forward to what happens with those guys. The next “act” up was “CX KiDTRONiK and KraK attacK” and they were fucking terrible. Preferred the house music actually. Living Colour finally came out and after Vernon Reid’s gear problems and fumblings, they kicked my arse. What a treat! Highlight for me was Doug Wimbish, who was totally inspiring as usual. It was a work night so we split before Saul Williams came out. Best part of the evening was the lovely company: My Alli, Mitzi, Marina & Sam, Kristen & Rob. Hope we can all catch another gig soon!

I’ve been listening to the new King’s X record “XV” more recently, eagerly awaiting their show in September with Porcupine Tree. The lyrics below are from the album’s opener. Even though I am a person who is far from religious, I like what this song has to say.

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And if you think that what you think is true,
if you found peace deep inside of you,
if your faith made a mountain move for you then,
don’t forget to pray for me, hear me now

pray for me, pray for me,
if you really do believe,
then don’t forget to pray for me,
hear me now
don’t forget to pray for me,
hear me now

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Last night Mitzi, Allison and I (Peter and Sam met us there) went to see Opeth here in Baltimore. By the time we made it in the venue, Baroness was already playing. They actually turned out to be pretty good. They had some good tunes that included some nice, textured instrumental sections. The second band, called High On Fire, was just awful and their set wouldn’t end quick enough. One volume with no dynamic changes to speak of and horrible vocals. How they got on tour with Opeth boggles the mind.

Once Opeth finally hit the stage I was SO ready. We ended up hanging out at one of the bars off to the side as to avoid the crowd of smelly metalheads. The view was actually pretty good and we could see almost everyone except the keyboard player. I took these photos with my phone so please pardon the quality:

And for what we couldn’t see from there, we just had to look above the bar at the big LCD monitor:

A couple of times I took a walk around for some more views:

And I’ve never seen a keyboard player rock out like Per Wiberg did. It was fantastic:

After one encore the band took their bow. This was the last show of the tour so I am sure they were ready to head back to Sweden:

After the place cleared out, I took a minute to watch the crew tearing down the gear:

Opeth was just amazing live and I am very thankful we went to see them. Mikael Åkerfeldt has got to be the best vocalist in metal, hands down. The new members of the band, Martin Axenrot on drums and Fredrik Åkesson on guitar did a brilliant job indeed. It was a very inspirational show for me and I’ve got nothing but respect for those guys.

I also have a new favorite hoodie, just in time for the cool weather!