Parkway Drive- Club 334, Santiago de Chile

I have seen a fair few videos on Youtube of the Parkway Drive show a couple of nights ago- I think it is imperative to see them in another country- particularly one that doesn't speak English to see just how big they have become.

It's all well and good to play the big festivals, but a real test is to play in a country that speaks a different language, for the first time, and from what I could see, not a lot of advertising. Dad said he saw some advertising for their show in Argentina, but I definitely did not see any at all for the show here. It was similar when we saw Machine Head and Sepultura, I only saw any advertisements about one block away from the venue.

Funnily enough, the two different venues were only a couple of blocks away, on the same street. I guess that is a bit of poor form, we've been here for a month and only seen two shows, both of "big" bands. What was really weird though, at both shows is that there were no supports- I made a comment to someone that Parkway Drive would never had got anywhere if it weren't for some generous bands giving them a hand over the years- particularly with support slots. For me it has been a bit of a weird feeling- I'm getting old enough where I really don't care about the other bands and just want to get straight to the point, however I've just arrived in a foreign land, I want to check out some new bands, and international supports are often a great way to find out about a new band- as they are usually somewhere around the cream of the crop.

The video above (I didn't film it), it may make you feel a bit dizzy, but I think it shows exactly what the show was all about- apart from the inflatable beach balls, boats, crocodiles, but in general- flips off the speakers, everybody knowing all the worlds, and kids generally going crazy.

I do say kids, because most of the crowd seemed fairly young. It must be a weird feeling for Parkway Drive to turn up each night in somewhere far away from home, Serbia, China, tonight they play in Ecuador, and have the whole crowd screaming back at them- amazing to think about really, how a gang of surfer bums from Byron Bay could come so far, playing this aggressive style of music.

I had a lot of fun at the show, and I really hope they tour in South America again while we are still here- maybe they could bring some mates like Break Even and/or I Exist, now that would be a very fun show.

Welcome Home

On Friday morning we got into town about 6:30 in the morning. We were lucky and got the emergency exit seat, so some room to stretch the leg. I noticed though there was more space in the first class area, they could have upgraded us to there, then we would have been really lucky!

An easy flight though, we had some storms as we left Bangkok, but we got flying and came into the airport on time. We are now going to spend a week in Sydney, staying with my Grandma, to keep things on "holiday mode". No point in going back to work immediately, I also saw on the weather yesterday, it was -5 in Canberra. That would be a bit too much of a shock to the system.

It was very cold when we arrived back in Sydney. Cold and freezing, holding nothing. We got the train, which is the biggest rip off in the world. Why pay $15 for the same train, that takes you to Campbelltown or wherever else. By the time we got in it was peak hour, so there's no space to sit down. What a deal.

It was nice to get back to Grandma's and get a good rest. It was my birthday on Friday so we caught up with some friends and got a mean steak at the Landsdowne. The next day we went to "Bastardfest" at the Sando in Newtown. We saw Ignite The Ibex, they were on first up. I put a link to a story I did about them in BMA last year.

They were good, with a pretty strong response for the 1pm timeslot. We went for a bit of a walk and caught up with our friends Viv and Bret. We will stay with them a while once we get back to Canberra. Hopefully by that time, the weather will have warmed up a bit.

We got some mexican for lunch, and had a dessert in a bookshop/cafe. By the time we got back to the Sando, Bane of Isildur were playing. They sounded alright. They were your typical warpaint wearing metal gurus.

My friend Paddy told me later on he had been sitting in the back room while these guys were getting their faces on, and old Kelly, the sometimes 4th guitar player of I Exist, sometimes Blunt Magazine guy, was playing some Grinspoon songs on the acouy. I said the best part would have been if while the blokes were putting their paint on they started singing along....since since, since since you went away, I hope you had a better day. Tried to call round the other day, instead I had a go kart. Go Kart.

I Exist were next up, playing on the smaller stage where we had seen Ignite The Ibex earlier on. I linked to an article I did with them in BMA a while ago too. They had a good showing as it's not so often they play at purely "metal" shows, even though they have a very metal sound. Although Extortion were also on the bill. This fest, Bastardfest was probably the closest thing in the last few years to the great Metal For The Brain events, which were always a real highlight of the year.

There was certainly a similar amount of sweaty long haired blokes, and I think the scent of all these packed like sardines into a room, was probably not good for my health. Remembering that I was in hospital just one week before, I was feeling not so great, so decided to give a miss to the rest of the evening. We had paid good money, but the main bands I wanted to see had already played, so why not just go home. Most of the other bands I had seen before anyhow.

So now we are here in Sydney. We have bought a weekly ticket, so we might as well stay around for a week. We had a nice walk today, through the gully behind Grandma's house, down to the Gore Creek reserve which eventually flows into the harbour. This was a good test for my ankle, and I think a success, so we would be able to do some more walks throughout the week.

Thailand zine scene search

While sitting here getting some rest for my ankle, I started making some enquiries into the zine world of Thailand. I have only just started looking, but I came across a very interesting write up of a Terror show in Bangkok.

By the looks of it, Jagged Visions is a punk/hardcore zine from the Netherlands, and the main guy has a brother living in Bangkok. But anyway, some interesting points in there about the scene. I found a link to another website about Thai hardcore, but it hadn't been updated in a few months. The last link was to Relentless, from Sydney playing. They're not very good though.

I looked on Last FM and there is a death metal festival on in about a week from now. I don't think I could really handle from midday to midnight of death/black metal, it doesn't sound that much up my alley and I'd say we would be out of town.

I came across a couple of other travel zines about Thailand. I have the idea to do up a zine about our trip, but let's see. Anyhow, I will search for more on Thailand as the day goes on. Looks like Jonathan has arrived in town, possibly a couple of days ago. He wrote me a comment on facebook at 5am saying he had met some characters and gone out partying, good times. So maybe we will see him later in the afternoon...

The Arthouse to close

In somewhat sad news, though it's been coming a long time, one of the most supportive venues to hardcore/metal/punk/music in general is to close. Their not going out with a whimper though, they're going out with a bang.

Here's a sample of some of their final shows:

20th - Carpathian + Guests
21st - Depression + Straightjacket Nation + Bloody Hammer + Scratch N Sniff
22nd – Mid Youth Crisis + Conation + Extortion + The Gun Runners — Tix On Sale Friday 11th March @ The Arthouse Bar
23rd - Frenzal Rhomb [NSW] + Anchors + Party Vibes — Tix SOLD OUT
24th - Fuck Im Dead + Captain Cleanoff + The Kill + The Day Everything Became Nothing + Superfun Happyslide + Roadside Burial [SYD] + Garbage Guts + Die Pigeon Die [4Pm Start]
27th - The Nation Blue + A Death In The Family + Lungs [NSW] + Paper Arms [SA] – Tix On Sale Friday 11th March @ The Arthouse Bar
28th – Bodyjar + Away From Now + Daysworth Fighting – Tix On Sale Friday 11th March @ The Arthouse Bar
29th - Mindsnare + Samsara [Last Ever Show] + Against [QLD] + Iron Mind + Phantoms [SYD] – Tix On Sale Friday 11th March @ The Arthouse Bar

Last Ever Arty Show:
30th - H-Block 101 + The Hawaiian Islands + Fear Like Us + The Critics [WA]

So hopefully I can get down there for a few shows.

Elysian

I just made Issue #11 of Capital Eyes, it features a couple of interviews I did with some friends of mine. It also is in a new style, I've halved the size for something a bit different.

Late last year Elysian played a show with Ignite The Ibex, who I interviewed a couple of weeks earlier for BMA. Nathan and Gabe are the brother guitarists of Elysian, and we have been friends for a long time now, probably about 15 years.

I caught up with them for an interview after the show

So you guys are finally together...how does feel to be in a band together?

G: Wow, we're getting into the heavy stuff straight away!

N: It's good, we've always jammed together, written stuff, but we've just been living in different places so never got the chance to do something together.

G: It was idea to get him in the band. I told him, you've got to be in this band. He said, I can't be in the band, I can't be in the band, so I told him he was in the band and he was in the band.

N: So then we trekked down to Melbourne and we started drafting people for the band.

G: We can yell and scream at each other, punch on. We're the two most hot headed people in the band, got the Hutchinson flare, we can scream at each other, but the next day, we can wake up, get back into it, it doesn't matter.

Did you have to move to Melbourne to get the band started?

G: Definitely. When I was first starting to think about it, it was between Brisbane or Melbourne. We thought Melbourne just had a much wider selection of venues.

N: Living in Melbourne you can play a range of shows at different places without overdoing it. A lot of bands overplay the same places over and over again. In Melbourne it seems you can play regularly without playing at the same place all the time.

That's not how it works in Canberra...

G: Apart from the Melbourne shows, Fogs from Assidian, he hooks us up with some shows around the place

You guys are playing a lot of shows on this Harbingers of Storm tour. What's a Harbinger?

G: It's a bringer.

N: I think it came around, Alice Through The Windshield Glass, every time they tour, it pisses down rain. Funnily enough, when this tour got announced, the floods started. We're playing in Wagga tomorrow. Hopefully we can get in there, the venue we're playing at actually got flooded.

How would you describe your sound?

G: A simple term to describe it would be melodic death metal. We draw a lot from progressive rock influences, we try and focus our songs around heavy vibes and mood, rather than playing fast and tech. I wouldn't call us a typical progressive band, with millions of different time signatures, but the song structures they way the songs go, some of them, they're a real journey.

What are the main places you play in Melbourne?

The Espy, The Arthouse, The Tote, these random youth centres in the burbs, weird clubs. Anywhere we can. There's still plenty more places to play.

Have you guys had any international supports yet?

N: No we haven't done any yet.

G: Yes we have (laughing). We played with this band called Death Vomit, from Indonesia. That was a disaster. It just wasn't our show. People were looking at us, where's the blastbeats, play faster. We travelled to Sydney for it, there were about ten people there, and all these grind heads, old death metal guys, they weren't into us at all.

How'd you like the show tonight?

Yeah it was good, awesome. Everytime we come to Canberra we get a great reception. I think Canberra is really starved for some new bands.

Do you think people are still holding on to the Shigella legacy?

N: No, I don't think people remember my old band at all. I'm sure the people watching had no idea about what my old band was about. It was just like Cannibal Corpse Junior, and no one cares really.

G: Shigella were cool, they were cool at the time. That was before the resurgence of death metal hadn't happened yet. This whole deathcore thing wasn't even around yet. They were doing blasts and things and this was impressive to people. If you look at it now, compared to some of the bands going around, it seems pretty simple.

N: We were sweep picking and things, when nu metal was still the big thing.

You guys had a big turnout at Metal for The Brain in 2006

We had a bit of a buzz going, there were plenty of people watching there.

I think I was at the first Shigella show, with two singers.

G: Yeah, me too.

N: Oh man, that was horrible, we were just making it up as we went along. I pretty much learnt metal guitar, because I had joined a metal band.

Have you guys ever played in a band together before?

G: We played in a covers band in high school, well it was Nathan's band, Seraphim but I filled in on bass a few times.

I was at the first show of that band to... I reckon that was one of my early favourite bands. I heard you on the community radio once..playing All Along The Watchtower I think.

N: We used to win all these battle of the bands, because the old blokes loved us. We would playing Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin, they were into it.

How does being from Bega affect your music?

N: I reckon it does, definitely. You're not really influenced...you've got no idea what anyone else is listening to, no idea what the trends are. Especially with metal, you just look in a magazine. I used to just order things from catalogues that sounded cool. That's how I got into stuff like At The Gates, In Flames, that kind of thing. You're just into what you're into. When you're in a small country town, it's probably just you and two other guys, you don't really care if that's the in thing.

G: You are isolated, that's for sure. Especially for us growing up, there was no myspace, no youtube, there was no connection. That's what I noticed when I first went to Brisbane. There were a whole lot of bands, they just wanted to sound like Strapping Young Lad. They all looked the same, they all had the same vibe. When you go to cities, you're so impressionable, in a country town, you're brain isn't as bombarded. You search harder for things. I remember sitting by the radio ready to tape songs, watching late night Rage if there was going to be a new Deftones song.

Do you still have your Hanson tape?

G: laughs

N: No, I don't have the Hanson tape. I gave it to Vivien Irving, for free.

G: laughs more.

Do either of you have any of your tapes left from your original collections? I've been listening to a lot of silverchair on tape lately.

N: I think I've still got a Foo Fighters tape. Nirvana- Nevermind, a bunch of mixtapes, or copied tapes from my mates.

What do you hope to do...what's the goal with the band?

We want to go as far as we can. In the forseeable future we just want to play as much as we can in Australia. Just bombard places. We want to play so much that people have no choice but to take notice of us. Hopefully the right people do...we definitely want to play somewhere overseas within a year or two. Fogs has been talking about a tour to Japan. Just want to drop another plug there for Fogs, he's our booking agent/manager with Assidian.

What do you think of the Australian metal scene at the moment?

N: I reckon it's bigger than ever. Look at the stuff that's popular at the moment. It's stuff with distorted guitars and screaming music, whether it be death metal, deathcore, hardcore, it's all metal. The hardcore kids might not agree...Metal's the biggest it's been since the 80s.

G: Metal's big at the moment, but I really question the uniqueness sometimes. That's why I really like Ignite The Ibex, it draws heavily from Meshuggah, but it's different. No one else is playing that style in Australia.

N: When I go out, it's often just another band that looks and sounds like Parkway Drive. A lot of them are just young kids though, and in the end, they're playing metal.

G: We complained for so long that there wasn't enough metal, now it's a big deal and people complain that there's too many copy cat bands. A lot of the time I'm disappointed when I see bands. Some that I really dig are Belakor and Ignite The Ibex. Apart from that there's not that much I'm impressed with at the moment.

What do you expect this tour to bring you? What's the Harbinger bringing?

N: Hopefully just a couple more gigs where people hear us and enjoy it. If we can just get that connection where people enjoy it, that's enough for me.

G: You can tell when people are genuinely digging it.

Do you have anything else to add?

G: I'm getting sued. A motorcycle t-boned me in Lismore three years ago. It wasn't my fault either, but I didn't have the money, the time or the know how, so they won the case. Our band also really enjoys pulling faces on stage.

Why do you have a mohawk when everyone else in the band has the Scandinavian Metal Look?

N: It's because he hasn't got the perseverance and patience to grow his hair long.

G: Well that explains the short hair, but this particular mohawk...

Was it because your mum was coming tonight?

N: We didn't know Mum and Dad were coming tonight actually.

G: This particular mohawk, I watched an interview with Phil from Pantera, he had a mohawk. You could argue he's just as metal as any of those other guys. When people say that's not a very metal haircut I'll tell them Phil from Pantera thinks it's alright.

N: He's pretty much the most metal guy ever actually.

N: My hair is pretty much what Phil's hair used to be. If I didn't have this hair, I'd have no idea what to do on stage.

I'd just like to say congratulations to my friends from Templestowe, who were listed by Andrew Haug, host of Triple J's metal program "The Racket" at no. 10 in his Top 10 albums of 2009. Their album Cimmerian was definitely one of my favourites for the year, and has been receiving some really positive reviews lately.

Here is the rest of Andrew Haug's Top 10

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/racket/s2772912.htm

ANDREW HAUG -TOP 10 ALBUMS FOR 2009

1.DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT - ADDICTED
2.ALICE IN CHAINS - BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE
3.CANDIRIA - KISS THE LIE
4.OSI - BLOOD
5.NAPALM DEATH - TIME WAITS FOR NO SLAVE
6.MEGADETH - ENDGAME
7.IRON AGE - THE SLEEPING EYE
8.MASTODON - CRACK THE SKYE
9.DREADNAUGHT - DREADNAUGHT
10.TEMPLESTOWE - CIMMERIAN

TEMPLESTOWE

Templestowe are a metal band from Canberra. They are one of the most promising young bands around at the moment, and good friends of mine. They also sometimes do a cover of "Slaughter of The Soul" by At The Gates which can only be a good thing! However, one time when they were between vocalists, I got up to sing it with them, and even though there were less than 20 people in the room, I was struck with complete stage fright, it was ridiculous!

These are some questions I fired of to Pete, one of the guitarists. I plan to have it in Issue 4, but I think it may be a while until I get that out...we'll see what happens. Here's the interview

Ok, standard intro question, who's in the band and what do they play?

I’m Pete, I do the guitars, then we have Josh also on the guitars, Andy on the vocals, Grant on the bass and Jesse on the drums.

You've just got a new drummer on board, what other bands has he been in?

Jesse has been doing time for a while now in Canberra ska outfit Los Capitanes, I’m not sure what he was doing before that. I know a few people will be questioning the link between a ska band and a metal band. Jesse’s style on the drums transcends a lot of genres and he draws influence from a wide range of styles, one of which is metal. Everyone can rest easy though, I don’t think you’ll be hearing any ska drum beats in Templestowe songs anytime soon.

You just played "Chaos ACT" over the weekend, how'd that all go. It was the first big metal weekend in Canberra in quite some time.

The weekend was extremely promising. The scene in Canberra is definitely on the up. There’s some new fresh bands kicking it around the traps and most of the other bands have got something on the burner. It’s great to see some bigger crowds getting into the spirit of things and embracing some of the great metal Canberra has to offer. Fogz (promoter of Chaos ACT) really stepped the bar up a notch in terms of metal shows in the region. It’s great to see someone taking up the legacy of Metal for the Brain and doing so with such enthusiasm and determination.

You will be recording a full length soon. Where are you recording that, and when do you expect it to be out....do you have any labels showing interest?

At present we are heading back into Dark Corpse studio with Scott Carter to churn out the tracks. Scott is an incredible mind and one of Canberra’s untapped resources in terms of recording and producing so it was basically a given that we were going to go back to him after our E.P. All things equal and fingers crossed looking at an end of year release. But that said, we’re definitely not rushing. We’ve spent too long writing and putting in the hard yards on these songs to be worried about a release date. We’re currently chatting to one independent label about distribution and release. Hopefully something will eventuate.

I know a couple of you guys are going to Europe for a while, and getting to see bands like At The Gates and Carcass at Wacken... will this delay the completion of the album?

Not so much delay. We’ve had this trip on the cards for many months so we’ve factored recording in around it. As far as I’m concerned recording can wait for something like a chance to see some of the world’s best metal bands with 60,000 other people rocking along side you. Not to mention I’m a complete At The Gates fan boy so I’m jumping out of my skin to see them and plus, all the most beautiful, delicious, thirst abating German beer one could ever want. Recording what?

You've had some pretty solid supports in the time you've been around, what have been some of the highlights so far?

Yeah, in terms of Australian metal we’ve played with some really great bands. Daysend in Canberra was great, a few of us have been listening to them since before our band even started so it was great to rock the stage with them. Apart from that we’ve played with Terrorust which was again great ‘cause a few of us are big Damaged fans, Double Dragon from Adelaide (despite their misfortune getting to the venue) and Nocturnal Graves last year was pretty cool.

What does the future hold for Templestowe? Will there be extensive touring once the full length comes out?

That’s the plan yeah. A CD without mileage in the Australian metal scene is pretty useless. I’ve always been a fan of the mentality that if you keep coming back to a place people are going to start to take notice. There was some talk after our EP was released of a national tour with Kill for Satan and Aeon of Horus, however we decided to sit tight till we had someone more substantive than an EP to tour on. Unfortunately due to the nature of our continent it’s very difficult to go on tour and make a living off it just because we’re not a big country population wise, we don’t have a lot of big cities and the ones we do have are so far away from each other. It’s a lot different to say for example the American metal scene where you can hop in a van and tour around till your little metal heart is content.

You've played a couple of shows out of Canberra, how have they gone....is there a big difference playing at home compared to playing interstate?

Playing out of Canberra is definitely a whole other ball game. Our shows outside of Canberra have been alright, but not great. It’s very easy to get complacent playing shows in Canberra. You play to decent crowds most of the time and you start to think that ‘yeah, this isn’t going to bad’. But really, it’s only the very tip of the ice burg. It’s not enough to just play your local 4 or 5 venues again and again. You have to get out there and play to the 10 people in another city, confident that the next time you go back there will be 20 and so on and so forth.

What can we expect from the album? Will be similar in sound and themes to the demo?

I think what people will find that the album is a lot more mature and polished than our EP. Not to mention everyone in the band is trying really hard to push the musicianship on this one. Apart from that we’ve gone out of our way to make sure we’re producing material that’s fresh. We’re always searching for ways to get out of our elements when writing and try and produce something different. On a whole the album is quite diverse. We’ve got some of the heaviest stuff we’ve done so far, and on the other hand we’ve also toned it down in some parts and produced some of the most progressive and melodic stuff we’ve done so far too. The last thing I wanted to do was produce 10 songs that are basically the same riff and song structure played every which way. I want an album to be durable and that for me comes with embracing different genres and styles of music. The inclusion of two new members in the band, that being Grant on bass and Jesse on the drums will also alter our studio sound a fair bit too. They both bring their own personality to the music which I’m hoping will shine through a fair bit in the songs.

What bands do you recommend at the moment?

At the moment I’m really getting into Enslaved, new Opeth is great, Necrophagist have been running a fair bit in my car. I’ve been loving some more proggy stuff too, Porcupine Tree are amazing, Three, Jesu and Isis. On the local scene Infinitum have just released a CD which absolutely slays, Aeon of Horus are brilliant as well as a band out of Sydney called Sword Towards Self. I also caught a band called Epoch of Inexistance at Chaos ACT from Orange who were very promising.

Any thanks or anything else to add?

Big thanks to Fogz for Chaos ACT, Benny Hocking, Scott Carter and yourself for the interview. Keep millin.