Wow. I haven't updated for awhile.

This has been one hell of a year. With this past weekend effectively closing out my calendar, I've managed to squeeze in forty-two different live events in 2010. This includes:

-15 metal concerts, including Maryland Deathfest VIII
-10 rock and other concerts, including the symphony (and, for simplicity's sake, ( Read more... )

Once again, I'm sure that I would have come across the name of Fear Factory in due course, as they are clearly visible among other bands in the metal genre. But once again, my initial discovery of them was entirely incidental: around the time that Test Drive 4 was released for the first PlayStation console in October 1997, the then-very young ( Read more... )

The series of band announcements leading up to the Deathfest in 2009 is what first piqued my interest in the festival. Then, late last summer, the Washington Post published a story by a complete outsider being introduced to extreme metal by grindcore masters Pig Destroyer through attending last year's seventh-annual event. I still highly recommend ( Read more... )

I'm very much a fan of the Mel Brooks film, but I've always thought that one of the flaws with Young Frankenstein The Motion Picture was its sluggish pacing. The deliberate movements and speech of characters are all too often drug out far longer than I think would be sensible for comedic timing, such as the creeping pace that Dr. Frankenstein and ( Read more... )

Last fall I attended my first concert at Mr. Small's without knowing anything beforehand about Eagle Twin or headliners Sunn O))) save for their reputation. I was not disappointed ( Read more... )

Before this year my only experience with ballet was with a California production of The Nutcracker in Uniontown in December 2006. And, a fine show though it is, I think of The Nutcracker less as a ballet and more of a Christmas tradition: the production focuses so much on the costumes and story that it feels, at least to me, less a ballet and more ( Read more... )

I recall quite clearly the first time I had the opportunity to see Henry Rollins speak. I was a freshman at Cal in the fall of 2004 when he was brought on campus as part of his speaking tour at that time. But instead of seeing Rollins, I decided it was more prudent to go to class.

Goddamnit.

Fast-forward five years. By the power of Twitter and ( Read more... )

Classical music, like anime and foreign films, is a genre that I enjoy but in which I cannot muster the will to greatly indulge. There's too much of it out there for me to even know where to begin - so I stick with the essential classics, generally, and perhaps the bits and pieces that come to my attention in one way or another ( Read more... )

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of Megadeth's most celebrated landmark release, Rust in Peace. In recognition of the occasion, the band has set aside the month of March for an anniversary tour in which the centerpiece of their setlist includes Rust in Peace in its entirety ( Read more... )

While I almost certainly would have come across them in due course one way or another, my introduction to acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela was entirely incidental. Browsing the headlines of BBC News one day in March 2007, I found a small write-up about an internationally-acclaimed guitarist who was unable to renew his work visa and who ( Read more... )