Happy 1996

It's 1996 in the Year-a-Month project, and at first I thought I would be splitting this year up over two months, but a combination of Freegal and laughably expensive albums whittled the order down to a reasonable level. I skipped albums by Danzig and Staind for price reasons, and scored Dio and ZZ Top through Freegal. Although in fairness, I doubt I would have bothered with ZZ Top if it weren't free.

Pantera: The Great Southern Trendkill - the opening scream on the opening track of The Great Southern Trendkill lets you know you're listening to Pantera: the band that invented the heavy metal scream vocals. They're really turning into the band that they were destined to become. It pains me that there is only one more album coming.

Dio: Angry Machines - picked this album up off of Freegal a month or two ago over the course of a couple of weeks. I love how Dio manages to change so much between albums, but still maintain the basic 70s-era sound that he's famous for. I forgot, as I listened, that this was a 1996 album (until the heavy synth on Stay Out of My Mind, of course).

Korn: Life Is Peachy - this one is shipping... but it's been a long time, so I'm not going to delay this post any longer for it. It's Korn. I'm sure it's awesome. Maybe I'll update the post with a review after it shows up.

Tool: Ænima - Say what you like about Tool, but their arrangements and production are second to none. Every song paints a unique picture, and yet the whole album hangs together in tone and feel.

ZZ Top: Rhythmeen - also scored this album from Freegal. It took 3 weeks to download it all, since Freegal only allows 5 songs a week. But since I rarely can find things I want in Freegal's inventory, it's not like I have a big to-download queue.

Overkill: The Killing Kind - This was a controversial album for Overkill, with two new guitarists and the addition of backing vocals. The press loved it, but fans predictably polarized into two camps: those that loved it, and those that hated it. I guess I'm not an Overkill fan, because I didn't even notice a change from the 1994 album WFO.

Motörhead: Overnight Sensation - this the only Motörhead album I know of that shows the band members on the front instead of the usual "war pig". That's Lemmy in the middle. I think the war pig is better looking. But fear not... the cover is the only thing different about this album.

Happy 1995, part 2

There was a long list of artists in 1995, so I split them up into two groups. Last month, I covered Maiden, Ozzy, Anthrax, and Filter. This month, we conclude 1995 with a foray into a couple of new bands, and more of the same from Motorhead.

Deftones: Adrenaline - Just like Filter last month, this is not metal. It's firmly in the "Alternative Rock" category, but it's good music to program to. I first found the Deftones after falling in love with The Matrix, buying the soundtrack, and then going out and buying albums from most of the artists on the soundtrack. Consequently, I have the next release, Around the Fur, so we won't be hearing from the Deftones on this blog until I cover the year 2000.

Acid King: Zoroaster - this is the first "stoner metal" album I have ever heard, so I didn't really know what to expect. It turns out that "stoner metal" means, at least to Acid King, a heavy baseline, distorted guitars, and a raggedy-voiced singer. Sounds good to me! This is also the first album I've downloaded for free (and legally) using the Freegal music service that I have access to as a member of the Poudre River Public Library district. Free music is good.

Motorhead: Sacrifice - I have a really hard time finding new things to say about Motorhead every couple of months. These guys' sound doesn't really change much from album to album, and I find them disappearing into the background when I listen to them while I work. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, and I keep them on the list because I do like their formula. I've gotten some flak for including Motorhead and not Kiss or AC/DC, and it really just comes down to my own personal taste.

There was also supposed to be a new stoner-metal band called Mushroomhead in this group, but I couldn't find their eponymous album for less than $28. Not willing to spend that much money on a band without ever hearing them before, I'll skip their 1995 debut album. Reminds me of the early Pantera days.

Happy 1995, part 1

Even after trimming the list some, I had eight albums to pick up for 1995. So to control the monthly outlays on this little project, I've split 1995 into two groups of four. There is no rhyme or reason to the split - the bands are just in the order in which they appear in my band list.

Iron Maiden: The X Factor - Blaze Bayley from Wolfsbane replaces Bruce Dickinson in lead vocals on this album. The moment he opened his mouth on Sign of the Cross, I started missing Bruce. He's not terrible, but he has some huge shoes to fill. Otherwise, this album follows the same winning formula as previous Maiden albums. I'll get used to Blaze eventually.

Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzmosis - Ozzy seems to have decided that he has earned enough heavy metal street cred, and now is the time to cash in with some mainstream "rock". I can't really blame him that much... Metallica started their two-album cash-in projects Load and Reload in 1996, just one year later. The economy was recovering, and people were buying whatever dreck was being released by their favorite artists, in the hopes that it would take them back to their teen years. But really, Ozzy, this album sucks. Shame on you.

Anthrax: Stomp 442 - There is something about the vocals in Anthrax that usually drives me crazy, but this album has John Bush instead of Joey Belladonna on lead vocals, and I found myself really enjoying it. The heavy guitars that I love are still there, and the groove-metal sound, but without the heavy New-York-rap sort of vocal style. Highly recommended.

Filter: Short Bus - Let's get this out of the way first: this isn't metal. But I added it to the list because I had fond memories of Filter's hit Hey Man Nice Shot, and I wanted to see how they sounded on the balance of the tracks. It's clearly a first effort, but the general sound is good, and I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of their stuff in future months (aka future years!).



Amazon rolled out a brand-new service this month called Auto-Rip. They take all your past and current CD purchases and automatically add them to your Amazon Cloud Player as MP3s, which you can directly download. It's a new service with limited coverage, so they are focusing on the most mainstream albums first. This month, only Iron Maiden made the cut, but it was nice not to have to rip the CD. I have to wonder what this will do to Amazon MP3 sales... I frequently find that the hard CD is much cheaper than the MP3 album; now, I get MP3s either way (most of the time). Further proof that the content-licensing industry's prices continue to make no sense at all from a cost-margin standpoint.

Now if I could just somehow get Amazon to charge me the lower rate for a physical CD, auto-rip it, and then not burn the resources to ship it to me, I'll be all set. Or... maybe MP3 prices will fall to reflect their nearly zero cost. Yeah, right.

Happy 1994

1994 was a very special year for me, because I started it engaged to the love of my life, and ended it on our honeymoon. She married an unemployed bum, because I had left my job at Andersen Consulting and was taking much of December off before starting my new one at the Chicago Stock Exchange. We were still living downtown and saving loads of money for that first house. Here is what was going on in hard rock and metal that year.

Stabbing Westward: Ungod - This was Stabbing Westward's debut album, and although they aren't strictly metal, they've earned a spot on this list. I thought Stabbing Westward had entered my consciousness with Wither Blister Burn & Peel (1996), but of course I recognized Control when it played. This is a good disc, but I recommend keeping the razor blades out of reach while listening to it. Pretty standard for Stabbing Westward, I guess.

Pantera: Far Beyond Driven - Every Pantera album is heavier than the last. In this one, the vocals start bordering on the growling that I find so annoying in "modern" heavy metal. These kids and their growling heavy metal singers, have they no respect!? It's still a groovy sound, and I happily added it to my playlist rotation, but I have to say I liked Vulgar Display of Power quite a lot more.

Korn: Korn - One word: Issues. Korn's blend of heavily distorted guitar, pounding base, and lyrics that alternate between sing-song and rage-growl paint a picture of a deeply distorted main character. Whether this is a self-portrait, therapy-rock style, or a Pink Floyd-like fictional character is largely immaterial. It's impossible to listen to this album, especially with the lyrics in front of you, and not feel sympathy mixed with revulsion for the pro(?)tagonist.

Overkill : W.F.O. - I know so little about Overkill, since they were unknown to me until I started this project. But their music never fails to get me headbanging. There is a secret track at the end with a little practice material where they play a couple of snippets from Dio's Heaven and Hell and Judas Priest's Ripper, which is fun and cool stuff. Why they insisted on sticking 90 tracks of 1-second silence in front of it is a mystery. Korn did the same thing. Must have been all the rage in 1994 or something, but it's very annoying.

Danzig: 4p - This CD was delayed because it was shipping all the way from the UK, so I had written the above two paragraphs about Korn and Overkill making the annoying decision to include a bunch of silent tracks at the end before a hidden track. Then this album arrived, and lo and behold, 53 empty tracks between track 12 and the hidden track 66 (Invocation). I remember having a CD player back then that would physically adjust the heads every time it switched tracks. I can only imagine what these discs would have done to it, if I had played them over and over.

CS|MACO Wakes Up

On Thursday morning, the American Association of Individual Investors' Sentiment Survey showed that 38.5% of their (paying) members reported being bullish. This was up 2.8% from the previous week. At the end of the trading day on Thursday, SPY closed below its 200-day moving average, down $5/share, or 3.5%, from Tuesday's close.

This close below the 200-day moving average caused CS|MACO to signal a position-closing trade. Don't remember what CS|MACO is? I don't blame you - it's been very quiet since May, when it went long SPY. As a primarily trend-following trade, the longer it holds a position the more likely it will make serious money. But unfortunately, it also means it will give back a large proportion of its profits when the market turns against it.

This position was typical. CS|MACO signaled a buy on May 10 when the folks who feel obligated to pay AAII for the privilege of filling out a weekly sentiment survey reported that they felt profoundly un-bullish (only 25.4% of them were optimistic). That entry at 136 was about 1/3 of the way through a down-move in the S&P that bottomed on June 4 at 128 (closing price), only to rally throughout the summer to a high of 147.20 (closing price) on September 14 - one of my favorite days of the year. Since then the volatility of the S&P has been increasing and it has been drifting lower through a series of bounces. I knew it was only a matter of time until the 200-day moving average was crossed.

CS|MACO will stay out of the market until one of the following occurs:

• AAII comes out with a bullish number below 27.5% (buy signal); or
• SPY closes above the 200-day moving average again (buy signal); or
• SPY closes below the 200-day moving average, and it in turn closes below the 300-day moving average (short signal). That will be a while.

Just for fun, here's a little chart that plots the weekly prices of SPY (taken on Wednesdays) and the AAII bullish sentiment number. I've limited the time range to be the period of CS|MACO's latest position; that is, May 10-Nov 8.

Including dividends, CS|MACO is up about 4% on a Return on Investment basis since its inception in September 2010. Not a great track record, but I'm sticking with it for now. 

Happy 1993

In 1993, I moved from my suburban prison in Palatine, IL to a downtown apartment in the Chicago Loop. I sold my car and started walking to work, saving a ton of money on car payments, insurance, gas, and parking. I was still putting in killer hours at the job, though, so there was little time for metal. This month we welcome a new face to the motley collection of usual suspects: Tool. I only have one album by Tool, which is 10,000 Days (2006), but I enjoy the deep-dark style and brooding sort of flavor to the sound. Will Tool's first album reflect this style, or will they evolve into it over time?

Accept: Objection Overruled - Accept is a tough band for me to enjoy. The guitars are good, which is important, and the chords aren't repetitive, which is a major annoyance (looking at you, In Living Color). But the vocals sound so much like AC-DC, which drives me crazy with its machine-like repetition, that I have a hard time letting go of the vocal similarity and just ... Accept Accept (ha!). The very first song on this album, my first comment to myself was, "ugh, this sounds just like AC-DC." It took a little while for me to realize it was only the voice. The rest is actually pretty good.

Anthrax: Sound of White Noise - This CD is terribly tardy, and I'm tired of delaying this blog post because of it. I will try to remember to update when/if it arrives.

Dio: Strange Highways - Dio just keeps getting better. This album wasn't a big splash when it came out, but I think it's nearly as good as Holy Diver (1983). Tracy Griljalva joins the team as lead guitarist, and I hope he sticks around for a while. The only criticism I can think of is that the tempo is a little slow and plodding. But I think Dio makes that work better than most.

Motorhead: Bastards - When I first added Motorhead to the Year-a-Month project, I glanced over the impressive list of albums they had released over the years, and wondered how a drug-addled three-man band could possibly come up with that much material. The answer, of course, is that they're very formulaic. But it's a good formula, so what the heck.

Overkill: I Hear Black - Overkill is a guitar-lover's band. The rhythm guitar riffs never fail to get my head banging, and the lead guitar blends into and out of the rhythm better than almost any other band. I Hear Black was their most popular album so far, which wasn't saying much. This is not a big-name band, by any stretch, which is a shame.

Tool: Undertow - Annoyingly, Tool chooses to run their track count up to 69, with 59 tracks of 1-second silence before the last track. Needless to say, these tracks didn't make it into the music library. I was of course familiar with the hit Sober, but most of the other tracks were new to me. Sure enough, the characteristic broody darkness found in later Tool works was on full display in this debut album. This should make excellent programming music.

Somewhat Tarnished

So here's a weird factoid. A year-old post, Dipped In Gold, wherein I discussed a bit of investing I had been up to, has suddenly been picked up on the spammer circuit. It has about 10x as many pageviews in the past week as my next most popular post, Booting Custom ISOs with Syslinux, and has already appeared in the top-10 of all time. I'm getting about 2-3 spam-comments a day, which is a huge load for a blog that generally can expect one comment from a friend about heavy metal bands every couple of months.

I have no idea what random keyword inspired the bot-frenzy, but here is a representative sample comment:

I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme.
Did you design this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it
for you? Plz answer back as I'm looking to create my own blog and would
like to know where u got this from. many thanks
Stop by my homepage : carton of newport cigarettes

The reference to cigarettes in the "payload" seems to be a pretty strong pattern, appearing in nearly all the comments in some form. I miss the good old days when it was all about porn and ED drugs of questionable provenance and wildly creative spelling.

In other news, for the 5 of you that enjoy reading the Year-a-Month posts, I have another one nearly done - I'm just waiting for a couple more CDs to arrive.