The Music Banter Members' Journals Monthly Update Thread

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Yeah, in fairness Batty doesn't come in to the office every day, but when he does he puts one of the best shifts of anyone here. The reason, apart from that, that his journal was doing so well was because I always find his stuff innovative, interesting, original and funny, and under my system he was awarded extra points for that.

Sorry Bat, I can't do anything about that now. It's out of my hands...

....and into the hands of your new assistant and tea maker.

[Powerstars]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

....and into the hands of your new assistant and tea maker.

He doesn't like my tea. :<

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by Powerstars

He doesn't like my tea. :<

I like strong tea. I mean, strong! Like, in a mug made out of that stuff they used for the heat-resistant shielding on the space shuttle. And a spoon made of the same material. And THREE tea bags. Marinate for thirty seconds, no more, no less. Milk, no sugar. Handle with extreme care...

[Powerstars]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I like strong tea. I mean, strong! Like, in a mug made out of that stuff they used for the heat-resistant shielding on the space shuttle. And a spoon made of the same material. And THREE tea bags. Marinate for thirty seconds, no more, no less. Milk, no sugar. Handle with extreme care...

*splatters strong tea all over Trollheart*

[Trollheart]

Man, it's all happening this week! Three new journals starting up, as well as the return of a very old friend to these shores! Speaking of which...

Bulldog is back! After he had said his farewells and we more or less expected never to hear from him again, he's returned to the fold, which is, I know, going to make a lot of the more established members here very happy. What's he writing about in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ouse-v-ii.html? Oh, it's about Bowie, and a country singer-songwriter who he thinks should be a star, and I'm inclined to agree. However that's not what's really important, is it? The important thing is that he's back!

For I think the first time since I began writing this update there's no entry to speak of at all from the Batlord, though he assures us that the next chapter in his metal epic is almost ready, so keep an eye on http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...t-schemes.html!

One of no less than three new journals starting up this week comes from Friggin Paradox where he is remembering his favourite music post-2007, with the likes of Lil Wayne, Wu-Tang Clan, Common (wasn't he in "Hell on Wheels"?) and more! It's all here, in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...dox-music.html.

Ki's been putting a fair amount of work into http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nal-music.html, with a return for the section "Worth the hype?", more Dallas Green and he also tells us a great story about just why he loves his job. Don't think I could ever have said that about mine, when I had one, so fair play t'ya Ki!

With Ki back we could expect the return of his soulmate, and so it proves, as LadyisLingering recalls her http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ic-memory.html with some rediscovered vinyl she's fished out from boxes. Songs from Jefferson Airplane, The Beatles, Genesis and Steely Dan to name but a few. Good to see ya back, Lil! (Though I'll always see your username as Lady in Lingerie, sorry...)

Mondo Bungle is still enjoying the country air of Oregon, and telling us about Shpongle and the time he got high: oh you! Sounds like his perception went through something of a http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...istortion.html!

Powerstars is reviewing the debut Zep album in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...sicalness.html as well as introducing us to another Flame War, this time on Bowie vs Cobain...

One of the hardest names to spell on MB, Sequoioideae is the second person to start a new journal this week. In http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...h-neofolk.html she (I think she's a she, correct me if wrong) is not surprisingly looking at the genre of neofolk. Only getting it started, but it looks like it could be very interesting indeed.

Trying to keep up with my own journals, not always successfully! At any rate, in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...d-journal.html you'll find "Musical conundrums sorted" plus a review of Marillion-lite (or I should say, dark!) Edison's Children's "In the last waking moments." There are Spooks abroad in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...-emporium.html as we head towards the end of season one, and Faith No More's "Angel dust" is another of the http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ver-heard.html.

The third of our batch of new journals starting this week is from 216, where he's http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nds-216-a.html, and it's already engendered some heated debate. Oh well: emo is short for emotional ho ho! The first band 216 is looking at is Jets to Brazil, so if you're into emo or would like to find out what it's all about, head to his journal.
(Note: as 216's username is a number I wasn't sure whether to follow the rules where numbers precede letters, and have him featured first, or treat the name as "two-one-six". In the end I went for the latter, so he ends up in the "T" section. With me. Nice here, innit? )

Unknown Soldier is heading into 1977, but before we leave 1976 in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...y-history.html there's a review of the famous Zep live album "The song remains the same" and then we're into '77 with the not-so-famous Hunt from, er, Hunt. Getting better every week!

Another "Great moment in Rock History" the Urban way in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nal-stuff.html

Wolverinewolfweiselpigeon is giving us the benefit of her considerable talent at creative writing this week in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...-tripping.html, and setting it to music. You know, she's right: often less is more.

After being featured in the "Young Guns and Old Hands" section last week, YorkeDaddy is now tying up the last entries on the band's creation of their album and planning to release some actual tracks very soon. Looking forward to that. Read all about the, er, climax (his own words) to the creative process in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...sterpiece.html


This week's Showcase comes from someone who often tends to get a lot of flak for the things he says and the opinions he expresses, but I think he's extremely articulate and intelligent, and hey, anyone into Waits is okay in my book!

The Big3 has been running his journal http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ming-moon.html since 2009, which seems to be something like when all the really good journals began. He won't always talk exclusively about music and he certainly won't post a list of YouTube videos, and ask him to use "internet-speak" and I think he'd kill you and leave your body for the vultures to fight over. What he does, is write extremely interesting and thought-provoking posts, and he's never afraid to criticise the site, tell off the membership and basically bite the hand that feeds him, so to speak. Such honesty can be quite rare, and so is the more appreciated. Here's an example of his work.

Originally Posted by TheBig3

There is a flap every now and again about whether or not MusicBanter is in decline. People wonder if its glory days are behind it, and whether we should all find greener pastures. My concern is if we’ve hit the ceiling.

Back when the real *******s still roamed around here, you could get in some 12-page fights that generally ended in personal attacks and snark, but at least it held your attention. All due credit to the Mod Squad, we’ve eliminated the *******s (as we should), but we haven’t brought in any heavy weights. I might be the cranky old man in the corner, but every time I look at the “new posts” offerings all I see are a bunch of Lounge-oriented questions that spawn endless debate. I could rant for days about why they go on, but lets just suffice it to say that they happen.

I wonder now if this is the limit for MB. Can we move beyond? Are we destined to be a destination for the latch-key kids bored ambition? Troll bait waiting to attacked: Too well modded to be ruined by them. Not intellectual enough to drive them away. How many more The Virgins should we endure? Last night I went to Digital Dream Door for the first time, just to see what the story was. I don’t think I’ll ever make an account there – too many *******s we’ve banned from MB still exist over there, and from the stories I’ve heard, its too undermodded for any real discussion to occur. All I did while I was there was poke around. I could tell in a second what type of community it was. The front page had some ridiculous Ad saying something about “Rock, Blues, and Soul” or something like that. Flags were being thrown immediately: “This sounds like it was made by a 16 year old who still thinks ‘Clapton is God.’”

I immediately went to find the one thing no rebellious 16 year old rock fan can tolerate. If this place was worth a damn, it would have a Country Forum. Shockingly, it did. But just as I’d suspected, I think it had 7 threads, 3 of which were stickied and the unstickied thread with the most posts (a grand total of 3) was a “100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time Thread.” The first one on that list – the best country artist of all time according to DDD’s posters – was Johnny Cash. The second post in that thread was shocked Carrie Underwood wasn’t listed. It was just as I’d imagined.

I’m telling you this story because, as much as I rage against the current state of MusicBanter (and its certainly not the new music bastion it was) its at least got a rich history of debate. You can find a good discussion out there for most bands that had existed prior to now. It appears as if our main competitor doesn’t even have good past debates. I came to MusicBanter roughly 7 years ago for a few reasons.

1. My old forum was closed by the management. They’ve decided to be simply a news site for ****ty music. You can feel free to check out Shoutweb if you want, but I haven’t been in a very long time, and no bands they talked about then made me want to go back.
2. The second reason I came because I remember asking a friend “Hey, do you think Paz’s involvement with Zwan means she’s out of A Perfect Circle?”
I think he asked me if I was speaking English and I knew I had to find people who were a little more savvy about the world of music. I still can’t tell you 3 bands Loose Lips Sink Ships listens to, and I feel like he’s been here for at least 3 years.

For much of my time at MB, its been very productive, useful, engaging, and fun. But today everythings “what are we drinking?” or “lets take photos of ourselves so we can eFlirt with people we’ll never see.” I’ll admit it, I’m depressed. I think maybe I’m too old for the game, maybe I need more than MB can offer. I’ve searched for other forums and I can’t seem to find a damn thing. They’re either too genre oriented or just out-and-out ****ty.

So this is me sending out an S.O.S for any passing ships that can take me back to the mainland. To somewhere they speak my language. To somewhere they still know what exploration is like. MB these days is my Easter Island. Its filled with stone-faced inhabitants unflinching in their interest, and too silent about what it is in the first place.

Although there are three new journals starting up this week, I'd like to steer clear of them just for a few weeks, till they find their feet, and look instead at somone who began their journal a little while ago but has not really updated too often, and yet it's a great journal and one that should be read. And updated.
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...s-journal.html
Essentially a vehicle for her novel, "The wonderful strange ones", and if you haven't read it yet, well here's something to whet your appetite...

They were starting to leak through.

It was all making some sort of terrible sense now: They’d been getting closer every time he dreamt them, and he was letting them. Of course they were going to find a way through. Of course. He knew this with complete confidence, was, in fact, more sure of this than of anything he’d ever known.

But why me? Ned wondered mournfully to himself, Why does it have to be me?

He thought of the incidents over the past week: The shimmer he caught out the corner of his eye while he had his lunch on the park bench overseeing the sprawling soccer pitch; the dark figure he’d spied while driving down a country road; and, this morning, the reflection of movement behind him he’d observed on the reflective surface of his television screen.

He also knew with absolute certainty that he could never, ever acknowledge them or something bad would happen. They couldn’t know that he was aware that they’d leaked through, and that would make them stronger than he could imagine. As shadows -- as flickers, reflections – they were manageable, and they were, for all intents and purposes, safe. No, not safe. He couldn’t allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. They were weak. Making sure that they remained weak was priority number one.

After this morning’s incident, he figured he’d pinpointed the exact moment he’d allowed them to cross over into waking life; it was at his friend, Jake’s apartment four days previous he’d made the awful mistake.

Jake was the consummate nu-age hippie, replete with tie-dye, mind-altering substances, and an anti-government protest-related arrest record. He lived in a fairly sizeable apartment in the nice part of town to match his fairly sizeable trust fund, and his presence in this part of town was a cause for self-righteous disdain amongst the more upstanding citizens in the neighborhood.

In contrast, Ned was a t-shirt/hoodie kind of guy, whose clothes always looked nice and well kept, if casual. He’d never so much as gotten a speeding ticket, and lived in an efficiency apartment near campus where he still called to talk to his mom on the phone every single day without fail.

Naturally, Ned thought Jake was the coolest mother****er he knew, and they’d been best friends since high school, when Ned came across Jake smoking pot while on a school trip to Lake Vesuvius sophomore year and took his first hit of the reefer from the poorly rolled joint of completely **** weed.

On the afternoon in question, Ned had gone for a bike ride, decided he wasn’t stoned enough to embark on said bike ride, and texted Jake to see if they could chill and smoke some trees. Jake was only too happy to oblige.

“I’ve been having this crazy sex dreams,” Jake told him, leaning back on his pea green 1970s era couch and taking a hit off of the bowl before passing it over to Ned, “It’s like, I wake up with a ****ing boner everyday now. I think I need to get laid.”

“What about Maggie?” A deep inhale of smoke. Release. Pass.

“What about her?”

“Don’t you guys still **** like crazy?” Ned waved the bowl off when Jake reached it over to him, “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself, man. And hell no, we don’t. I’m thinking about breaking it off with her. Finding some strange.”

They both laughed, but the word “strange” elicited a, well, strange response from Ned, who suddenly remembered something.

“Speaking of strange,” he said, definitely feeling every bit of the dank he’d just smoked, “I’ve had some strange dreams.”

“Yeah? Dreamed you actually had some balls?”

“**** you, man. No. Like, recurring nightmare ****.”

“Dude,” Jake put the bowl down on the table and smiled in his cheesy Jake way, “If this is another faceless dog incident…”

If you want to read more (and you had better have a damn good reason why not!) then click the above link and let Sara transport you into her world.

As for the "Old Hand"? Well, was there ever any doubt? With the celebrated return of Bulldog, one of it would seem the most missed members on the site, how could we do other than give over the spotlight to http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ouse-v-ii.html

I don't know when the original Doghouse was created, but Version II began its life in 2010. Since then Bulldog left the forum but has returned, and this time we all hope he stays. The guy seems to be something of a legend here, and I'm sure those here longer than I --- or who have interacted with people more than I have, or did, originally --- could tell you a lot more about him. Personally, I don't know him but I recognise he was one of the driving forces of Music Banter here once upon a time, and who knows? May be again. For now, I'll let his writing do the talking...

Originally Posted by Bulldog

It's been a while, so I may as well get this one back on the rails too...

[CENTER]Ashram
Silver Shining Skies
2006

genre: new age, gothic
1. 5 Steps - 3:07
2. Maria and the Violin's String - 2:58
3. Sweet Autumn (Part II) - 2:53
4. Lullaby - 2:19
5. Il Mostro - 3:26
6. All'imbrunire - 2:27
7. Last Kiss - 3:35
8. Elizabeth - 2:32
9. For Each and Every Child - 4:24
10. Tango Para Mi Padre Y Marialuna - 3:32
11. Lady - 3:11
12. Shining Silver Skies - 3:35
13. Rose and Air - 2:32
14. Ultimo Carillon - 3:50

I know you're pretty much wherever you are as you're reading this and, hey, I'm basically on the other side of cyberspace from you as well. Nevertheless, I can just see that blank expression of yours as you look at that lovely white sleeve art wondering what the bloody hell I'm rambling about this time. Hell, I might as well not even know myself half the time. By the way, if all that doesn't apply to you and you do in fact know who these guys are, congratulations - you're alright Un-knowing and curious to get rid of that 'un' part? Here we go...

I don't know if you're familiar with Hinduism at all, but if I'm gonna quickly sum up what all this stuff sounds like, it's worth me telling you that an ashram is a remote, isolated place where Hindus go for spiritual instruction and/or meditation. Combine that with the words 'neoclassical', 'gothic' and 'ethereal' and I'm sure you can hear this album chiming through your noggin already. To go into it a bit deeper, this album is a 50/50 split between songs with a vocal track slapped over the top of them and instrumentals, each song of either kind being fleshed out by a violin/cello/piano combo, with the odd augmentation of an acoustic guitar.

Meditation music? Possibly...although simply dismissing it as that and therefore any boring, knockoff new age tripe would be doing this album a real disservice. I won't deny that if you like to dabble in such things as I do then, yes, this music is pretty useful for that purpose, although I'd be telling you a big nasty fib I told you that that was the sole reason I got this album about a month ago.

So that wraps up yet another journal update, the last for July would you believe? Halfway through the year already! Anyone who starts mentioning the "C" word gets a slap! I'm off to enjoy the sun --- oh look: it's raining! Forgot I live in Ireland! Oh well. Rain in July? Floods in August? Must be Dublin.

See yas next week, and stay tuned no doubt for Powerstars' updated, new-look League Table!
Toodles!

[Powerstars]

Are you ready for the league table redesign? I don't think you are! I won't show you!...okay, fine...

You guys like it? Anyways, as you can see, wolverinewolfweiselpigeon holds the top spot with an iron fist still! Rounding out the top three are Trollheart's Couch Potato, holding it's position from last week and YorkeDaddy's Diluted, which went up three spots. Past the top ten mark are three ties. Trollheart, in a soon-to-be-revealed conspiracy, that cheeky bastard, tied with himself in 11th place. In the tie for 13th we have a new entry, and an established one, and in 18th we have two entering journals. Good luck to everyone next week and be sure to tell me what you think of the redesign.

[Unknown Soldier]

I'm in fourth spot and ahead of both The Batlord and Urban but behind YorkeDaddy who the **** is YorkeDaddy!

btw Powerstars, a great design for the league table, blue is a nice colour for it.

[The Batlord]

How did I get two points this week? I didn't even post.

[YorkeDaddy]

Originally Posted by Powerstars

Are you ready for the league table redesign? I don't think you are! I won't show you!...okay, fine...

You guys like it? Anyways, as you can see, wolverinewolfweiselpigeon holds the top spot with an iron fist still! Rounding out the top three are Trollheart's Couch Potato, holding it's position from last week and YorkeDaddy's Diluted, which went up three spots. Past the top ten mark are three ties. Trollheart, in a soon-to-be-revealed conspiracy, that cheeky bastard, tied with himself in 11th place. In the tie for 13th we have a new entry, and an established one, and in 18th we have two entering journals. Good luck to everyone next week and be sure to tell me what you think of the redesign.

top 3 noobs get on my level

[djchameleon]

I really like the graphic that you used for the table design. Good job.