THE CASE AGAINST RANDY BLYTHE: A LEGAL ANALYSIS

 Mosh Pit  27 Responses »
Jul 132012
 

We’re one of the few metal blogs on the web who have devoted no space at all to the criminal charges that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe is facing in the Czech Republic. There are various reasons for that, but one of them is that we didn’t want to join the ranks of many whose writing on the subject has generated more heat than light, preferring instead to wait until a time when we might be able to contribute some meaningful insight into the problems that Blythe is currently experiencing.

Today is that day. Today, we have a guest post by a British criminal attorney, Clare Paget, who is one of the best minds at the law firm of Hanne & Co, in London, UK. She provides some actual trained legal insight into the situation. And for that, we owe thanks to one of our favorite UK extreme metal band’s, Prosthetic recording artist Dragged Into Sunlight, who put us in touch with Ms. Paget.

As you probably know, Randy Blythe was arrested on June 28 upon landing in Prague and was charged with what is being described as the offense of manslaughter under Czech law for allegedly causing the death of a fan named Daniel Nosek at a Lamb of God show in the country on May 24, 2010. At the time of this writing, Blythe remains in a Prague jail because the Czech prosecutor has filed an objection to his release on $200,000 bail.

Ms. Paget has experience with this type of case under British law, including obtaining the acquittal of a defendant in a high profile manslaughter case in 2011. Of course, because the charges against Blythe are based on conduct committed in the Czech Republic, the Czech criminal code will be applied to determine whether he committed an offense. Nevertheless, based on our research (which includes a review of this translation of the Czech criminal code and this summary and analysis of that code), it appears that there are relevant similarities between the Czech and British legal principles applicable to this type of criminal charge, as Ms. Paget describes them.

After the jump, Ms. Paget offers a concise analysis of the case based on her own experience in defending against manslaughter charges in the UK.  Continue reading »

THE NCS READERS POLL: RESULTS

 Mosh Pit  38 Responses »
Jun 282012
 

About a week ago, I launched a poll on our site with the idea of getting feedback from readers on some questions that have been floating around in my head for a while, such as whether people would rather get one or two hand jobs from Phro. The poll is now closed, and as promised, I’m now reporting the results.

To be honest, this post is superfluous, since the polling software allowed anyone who filled out the poll to see the cumulative results, but most of you have probably forgotten about the poll anyway, so what the hell.

I found some of the results quite surprising, though others confirmed what I already suspected. Some of the results have given me food for thought about possible changes to the site, but since I move even more slowly than the beloved though sinister lorises here at the NCS compound, I don’t think you’ll be seeing any dramatic changes anytime soon.

Before getting to the results, I noticed that we had widely varying participation in the poll, depending on the question. I guess I should be happy that anyone bothered to fill out the poll at all, though many people obviously didn’t answer every question. And of course I have no way of knowing how many people had the attitude of our very own DGR, who apparently checked off every choice on every question, with this helpful comment: “I CHECKED ALL THE ANSWERS WHENEVER I COULD. FUCK YOUR POLL.” I will be docking DGR’s pay beginning tomorrow. So yeah, I make no claim that the poll results have any statistical validity.

I should also note that we got 126 comments on the original post about the poll, and even taking into account that I probably wrote half of them, that’s still got to be close to a record for our site. I got as much out of the comments as I did out of the poll results. They were a lot more entertaining, too. So, anyway, here are the results, with a few thoughts about each one: Continue reading »

FIRST EVER NCS READERS POLL EVER!

 Mosh Pit  125 Responses »
Jun 192012
 

The truth is, I didn’t start this blog to please anyone but myself, and even today I and the other writers mostly focus on what WE care about, rather than on what we think will make other people happy with us. But over time, as the blog’s audience has grown, I’ve come to care in a borderline-unhealthy way about the site’s traffic statistics and about what our readers think of what we write.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to start making changes in an effort to suck in more page views — the central idea is still to write what we think is worth writing, and people will either be drawn to it or they won’t. But I’m still really curious about what our readers think, what they like and dislike, and yes, how we might improve the site.

SO, I’ve come up with a series of questions, and I’d be really grateful if you’d answer them. I’ve tried to make this poll as simple as possible. Anyone can answer them — you don’t need to register or give any identifying information, and your answers will be completely anonymous. It won’t take long to fill out the form, and you can even see the poll results as they accumulate.

I’ve set this up so the poll will remain open for one week from today, after which I’ll compile the results, publish them in a forthcoming post, and then probably ignore them as we move forward into the great unknown future.

In some of these questions, you may not see an answer that best suits the way you think, or you may not see a question that you think we should be asking. So please leave comments if you’d like to express an opinion about NCS that we haven’t covered in this poll.

Also, because this is the first time I’ve used this polling software, there could be technical difficulties. If you encounter any technical trouble, try holding down the CTRL + SHIFT + DELETE + F5 + CAPS LOCK keys while moistening a finger on your non-typing hand and inserting it in your rectum, and THEN click the mouse with your nose.

Okie dokie, let’s get to it! Continue reading »

A SNAPSHOT OF THE UNDERGROUND

 Mosh Pit  11 Responses »
Jun 022012
 

I follow a ton of bands on Facebook, so many that I can no longer get through all the status updates every day. But I try to stay abreast of what’s happening, in part to find things worth mentioning on NCS and in part because I’m just interested in the scene. Plus, I know people in some of these bands, especially the ones in Seattle.

These are some of the updates I saw late yesterday.  I picked these for a reason, which you may figure out for yourself as you read through them, though I’ll make the reasons explicit at the end.

Boston police arrested Javier Reyes of AAL outside a venue following a show, manhandling him and his friends for what seems to be no good reason.


Continue reading »

METAL AND THE MAINSTREAM

 Mosh Pit  44 Responses »
May 182012
 

(Andy Synn rides to the rescue of a site without much content ready for today with an opinion piece.  Limber up your fingers for some comments, please.)

Just a short, stream-of-consciousness piece here for today, since Islander’s been inundated with responsibilities to his life outside of the site (and honestly, who really needs a life outside of this site I ask you?), putting down some of my thoughts, in brief, on the ever contentious topic of metal and its place (or lack thereof) in the mainstream. This certainly isn’t a new topic, though hopefully I’ll be able to offer some interesting observations from my own point of view.

[Note here that whenever I use the word “we” in this article I am purposefully generalising – maybe certain points don’t apply specifically to everyone, but if you get a large group of people together they always come to be more strongly generalised than they would individually]

To start with, let me say something controversial: A huge proportion of the metal scene craves recognition/acknowledgement from the mainstream. And I’m not talking your Linkin Park’s or your Limp Bizkit’s, no, I’m talking about bands, fans, and journalists who are truly interested in the more legitimate forms of metal, yet are exceedingly sensitive to any instances of mainstream exposure. Even they have an underlying craving for acceptance. We claim not to care about such things, but the second a “real” metal act gains some chart success we’re out there trumpeting to the world in a strange mix of superiority and attention-craving.  It’s why every third-rate deathcore or metalcore act does a generic Katy Perry or Lady Gaga cover. It’s why djent failed to achieve its initial promise, falling prey to the same pitfalls of hype and ill-advised pop covers as nu-metal, albeit with more bedroom technicality. The mainstream is insidious in its influence, and permeates even the most underground of metal genres. Continue reading »

CATTLE DECAPITATION STUDIO REPORT IS QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT

 Mosh Pit  1 Response »
May 142012
 

I didn’t write our review of Cattle Decapitation’s new album, Monolith of Inhumanity. That’s because I’m too busy taking care of the really important shit around here, like writing posts about Angela Gossow’s abs. But that doesn’t mean I disliked the album. Far from it. In fact, I think it’s the best album Cattle Decap have ever done and it’s one of the best albums of the year. So there: I guess that’s my review.

One part of what makes the album such a riveting listen from beginning to end are Travis Ryan’s vocals. The dude is a vocal chameleon, or perhaps a vocal schizophrenic. It’s as if he’s inhabited by multiple personalities, each of which expresses himself in a distinctive (and thoroughly insane) manner, and all of whom sound fucken killer.

Today, Cattle Decap unveiled a studio report that focuses on the vocal tracking for Monolith of Inhumanity. I guess it’s kind of putting the horse after the cart, since studio reports usually precede album releases, but I’m glad they released it because it’s very entertaining to watch. And I say that as someone who really doesn’t watch studio reports very often because I’d rather be listening to the damn music, y’know?

In addition to Ryan, the video includes the recording of the gang vocals on “The Carbon Stampede” by The Cephalic Carnage Community Men’s Choir, consisting of all current Cephalic members and alumni Jawsh Mullen and Zac Joe. It also seems clear from the video that producer Dave Otero had a lot to do with Cattle Decap’s stretching of their talents on Monolith. For which we owe a hearty THANKS MOTHERFUCKER!

Check out the video after the jump. It’s fun (and thanks to TheMadIsraeli for tipping me to this.) Continue reading »

THINGS MOST GAY MEN DON’T LIKE: METAL

 Mosh Pit  25 Responses »
May 092012
 

(We welcome NCS reader Mike Yost with his first guest post for our site, prompted by his experience at the recent Denver stop of the Opeth–Mastodon tour. This post also appears as of today on Mike’s own blog, which you can find here.)

Mastodon finishes shredding the frenzied crowd.  The drummer tosses his sticks into the throng.  The lights go up.

It’s between sets, so I sit with my back against a metal barrier that separates me from the larger crowd below.  I shove in a pair of earbuds, turning up “Black Rose Immortal.”  A twenty-minute Opeth piece of metal magnificence and mayhem that chokes out the white noise of conversations around me.

There’s something about heavy metal that’s primal. Cathartic.  A juxtaposition of raw, exposed animosity eviscerated and dismembered by beauty herself, left on the dusty ground in a pool of blood to die—with a smile.

The lights drop, and I jump to my feet.  I yank out the earbuds.  The crowd stirs.  The only illumination comes from the Fillmore Theater chandeliers hanging from the ceiling—glowing purple.  Movement on the stage.  The crowd starts yelling in anticipation.  I join in.  Blue lights grow bright to illuminate that signature O.  Mikael Akerfeldt walks onto the stage.  Metal ensues. Continue reading »

DREAM THEATER: REVISITING “IMAGES AND WORDS” (1992)

 Mosh Pit  22 Responses »
Mar 292012
 

Our fellow metal blogger, Full Metal Attorney, has been keeping his eye on the calendar, and he noticed that yesterday — March 28 — was the 20th anniversary of the release of Images and Words, the second full-length album by Dream Theater and a kind of milestone creation in the genre of prog rock/metal. To commemorate the occasion, he wrote a retrospective about the album. To commemorate his commemoration, I’ve written this post, because I’m curious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve leached off of Full Metal Attorney. I did this once before after he posted a piece about Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power on the 20th anniversary of that album’s release. And, y’know, one good turn deserves another, particularly when the turn means I don’t have to come up with my own ideas.

FMA’s post begins with these words: “[Dream Theater’s] fan base is composed less of metalheads and more of music students and guitar nerds. There’s no mystery why that’s the case: The band’s musicians–who met at Berklee College of Music–are consistently named to be among some of the best in rock music. So music geeks love them. But Metalheads, as a rule, hate them.”

I don’t know if it’s true that Metalheads, as a rule, hate Dream Theater, because I don’t talk with anyone about Dream Theater, because I don’t like their music very much and I think discussing them would be boring. So although I must be one of those metalheads to whom FMA was referring, I am still curious about a few things. Continue reading »

THE 10 MOST LETHAL WEAPONS IN BLACK METAL: A PRELUDE

 Mosh Pit  15 Responses »
Mar 032012
 

(Earlier this week, Metal Injection published a discourse on The 10 Most Lethal Weapons In Black Metal. In the introduction to the article, the author alluded to the reasons why certain kinds of weaponry have been associated with the genre. Now we get the author’s full explanation — a Part 1, if you will, to the Part 2 piece that appeared at Metal Injection. At NCS, you know the prolific author as Rev. Will. In the course of his research, he consulted members of Noctem, Sigh, and Edge of Paradise, as well as the Vegan Black Metal Chef.)

Funnily enough, whenever black metal weaponry floats to the surface of the perpetually random sea of thoughts slushing about in my head, the next thing that invariably comes to mind is the “bling-bling” of hip-hop culture. Before the elitists out there start coming down on me with the wrath of Satan’s cheeseburger, consider for a moment the following comparison.

Now, I am not insinuating that there is a musical similarity between both genres. What I would like to point out is that just as bling-bling is the Statue of Liberty of hip-hop, black metal weaponry is very much an iconic part of black metal that serves as the first graphic reference for most people’s memory banks when they try to recollect what they can of the grim metal sub-genre (someone ought to give it a catchy name too, maybe “cling-clang”). Just as many hip-hop artistes are famous within the mainstream music circle for their overly-flashy jewelry, black metal musicians are infamous within the underground music community for their ostentatious weapons as well.

Over time, both sets of accessories have evolved from merely being elements of sub-genre attire into cultural movements of their own. Bling-bling and cling-clang are both usually made of metal, but that’s where the similarity between both cultural movements stops. Unsurprisingly, for a sub-genre and cultural movement as pessimistic and misanthropic as black metal, its proliferation in the early ‘90s even had the occasional political motive—something much of hip-hop has left far behind since its early days. Continue reading »

THE BEST AND WORST REPLACEMENT VOCALISTS IN METAL

 Mosh Pit  46 Responses »
Feb 222012
 

As I did yesterday with an article by Full Metal Attorney about Pantera, today I’m again leeching off the creativity of another metal blogger in an effort to spark discussion here at NCS. Today, the blood-suckee is Jason Roche, a metal writer for the LA Weekly blog.

Latching on to some of the new year’s higher-profile vocalist switch-ups — with Jesse Leach re-joining Killswitch Engage, Stu Block recently making his live debut with Iced Earth, and Dragonforce on the verge of releasing their first album with new vocalist Marc Hudson — Jason wrote two pieces over the last two days about the Top Ten Best and Worst Replacement Singers in Rock and Metal.

As the titles of these two articles suggest, some of his Top 10 choices are about rock bands. Those of you who are less musically narrow-minded than I am would enjoy reading them from start to finish (here and here), but our focus is metal, so the metal bands on his lists are the ones that caught my eye. On his Top 10 list of Best Replacements, the following are relevant to metal:

No. 10: ANGELA GOSSOW replacing Johan Liiva in Arch Enemy (2001 – present)

No. 9: GEORGE “CORPSEGRINDER” FISHER replacing Chris Barnes in Cannibal Corpse (1996 – present)

No. 8: HOWARD JONES replacing Jesse Leach in Killswitch Engage (2002-2011)

No. 7: JOHN BUSH replacing Joey Belladonna in Anthrax (1992-2004, 2009-2010)

No. 4: MIKE PATTON replacing Chuck Mosley in Faith No More (1989 – present)

No. 3: BRUCE DICKINSON replacing Paul Di’Anno in Iron Maiden (1982-1993, 2000-present)

No. 2: RONNIE JAMES DIO replacing Ozzy Osbourne and others in Black Sabbath (1979-1982, 1980-1992, 2006-2010)

No. 1: BRIAN JOHNSON replacing the deceased Bon Scott in AC/DC (1980-present)

And Jason’s Top 10 list for Worst Replacements includes these picks . . .
Continue reading »

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