Japan 2010-2011

A Good Movie Quote

Scrooged is a movie I never hear people talk about, but it is full of great lines that make you laugh in sinister and upsetting ways. It's the same kind of laugh as when George Carlin would really tear into America and it's spot on in that depressing kind of way. Other than hearing Bill Murray say, "the bitch hit me with a toaster," another one that stands out is during his encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by the singer of the New York Dolls. He shows Frank (Murray) an unsettling scene of his childhood, and the adult Frank leaves the house trying to stay upbeat and positive after seeing his childhood self bear the brunt of reality. Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Past, in this version a spot on Manhattan cabbie, stops Frank in his tracks and delivers it straight: "Face it, Frank. You don't know who you are, you don't know what you want, and you don't know what the hell is going on." Poignantly catatonic and perfectly delivered.

Pointless Politics

Discussion is really a futile enterprise these days. I've been watching a lot of the cable news stations lately, and it just gets horribly depressing. They mask discussions of issues and current events by pitting extremists from both ends against each other on the air. What results is nothing short of jumbled arguing due to the fact that each side raises his or her voice simultaneously to be the predominant figure so much so that nothing is actually learned by the viewers it is intended to enlighten. They are so busy preaching, they forget about teaching. By the time it finishes, I have no greater understanding of the issue at hand, jut a greater disdain for the people trying to force me into their camps of thought. Then you go out into your own surrounding areas and hear people trying their best to have the same arguments, but because they don't even understand half of what they are trying to spew, they end up looking foolish and uneducated. But it's so incredibly pointless to even engage in political talks, no matter at what level. On the one hand, if you are unaware of the issues and why people on the right oppose the views of the left, you are automatically unqualified to speak out from either side and sound ridiculous if you choose to do so. On the other hand, if you are completely up to date on all the issues, such as the people arguing on television, then it is still ultimately a waste of time to engage with the opposition about politics because neither party will be swayed to change their opinion. I am closer to the latter. I have had others try to come down on me for my views, and in the past I have tried doing the same, but I finally realize it's a completely empty effort. No one will change my mind by preaching to me and trying to guilt trip me. I won't have the same effect on anyone either, so I no longer care. If you have gotten to that point in your beliefs as I have, what's the point of wasting time? Besides, most people you run across will only be able to spew back bullet points they receive from their media of choice and let's be honest: it's Fox News for the right and MSNBC for the left. No one wants to be bothered with reading these days, so they watch Glenn Beck or Rachel Maddow to speed up the process.

The talking points are more noticeable from the right. I recently saw a short film by Alexandra Pelosi from the McCain-Palin campaign trail in 2008, where supporters railed off these points with unwavering gusto. The expected answers:

Obama is a socialist. (Be honest, you don't even know what socialism is.)
Obama is the next Hitler. (Bush is the current. Ask Iraq.)
Obama is a terroroist. (Because his middle name is Hussein, right?)
Obama went to Harvard and doesn't understand the working class.
(Bush went to Yale and Harvard and doesn't understand the English language.)
America isn't ready for a black president.
We will be attacked if Obama is president. (9/11. Who was president?)
Foreigners are taking our jobs. (That's because Americans are really lazy.)
Obama is anti-American. (As his record of public service indicates.)
Blame it on liberal media.
(You mean the same liberal media that is airing a pro life ad but not a gay dating site ad during the Super Bowl?)


The list goes on forever, and it is robotically spewed by southerners with thick accents who would stand to benefit financially if they knew anything about what they were talking about.

Liberals in a sense are just the same as neocons. They just automatically revert to the same bullet points. All they have to do is watch Bill Maher for an hour and they are set. While right leaning analysts on television tend to be either gorgeous women in their 30s-40s or square white men in the throes of a midlife crisis, their liberal counterparts tend to be ugly, self righteous, and bland. This is what they love saying:

Obama will create jobs. (Big time bullshit.)
Obama will get us out of the wars in the Middle East.
(Afghanistan didn't get the memo.)
Obama will only tax the rich. (So striving for greatness is eventually punished.)


Both sides are full of major shit. I belong to one side, but I am trying to distance myself from the unwavering support that resonates from both ends. If someone could actually convince me to believe otherwise, I might give some consideration. It will take more than just running down the Bill O'Reilly crap. If I raise an objection, it won't help to raise your voice and say the same thing again. Actually, I take it back. I don't even want to talk about it, because I know how to educate myself and it doesn't involve a television. We are all peons in the grand scale of the Earth, the cosmos, the never-to-be-discovered pockets of the universe and so forth. The planet is billions of years old. Measuring our importance or better yet, picking this moment in time out of an immeasurable hat would be like pinpointing a particular grain of sand from all the world's beaches combined. Better to just let bygones be bygones. I'd rather just have a beer and watch the game.

The Real Battle of the Sexes

On Sunday, January 24, a new precedent was set in the world of professional sports when Kelly Kulick became the first woman ever to win a Professional Bowlers Association tour event. It just so happened to be the Tournament of Champions, the most prestigious bowling tournament there is at the pro level. Unfortunately, pro bowling doesn't have large numbers of followers, so this amazing feat may go largely unnoticed and underappreciated. It doesn't seem fair, though, because of all the major uprisings by women in male-dominated sports this may be the biggest achievement ever.

When women step up in the public eye and challenge men at the pro level, there is always some sort of reference to Billie Jean King and her 1973 iconic tennis victory over Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome in Houston. While I don't wish to discount the importance of that moment and what it meant for future generations of female athletes, I think the circumstances surrounding that event take a back seat to what Kulick was forced to do. I wasn't alive in 1973, so I can only speak of the events as I have read about them, but still I have my doubts. Back then, King was a 30 year old star already with 10 grand slam titles under her belt. However, a woman by the name of Margaret Court had King's game figured out and in all defeated King 21 out of 34 matches. You'll see why that is important very soon. In 1973, Bobby Riggs was 55 years old and well past his prime of the '30s and '40s. At 55, Riggs was a showman and entrepeneurial wizard above all else. He adopted a chauvinistic stance against women's tennis that played right into the emotions of a still-turbulent America. Whether or not people were tennis fans, they could choose a side. Likewise, whether or not Riggs was genuine in his beliefs, he knew he could stir people up and turn a profit at the end. With this in mind, he challenged one Margaret Court to a singles match and handily defeated her in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 on Mother's Day. Court was the number one female player at the time but had a hard time withstanding the well placed drop shots and lobs of Riggs, who, after defeating Court, turned his attention to Billie Jean King. His initial offers were refused. King wanted nothing to do with Riggs, and you can bet her losses to Court had something to do with it. If Riggs could defeat Court, who had in turn defeated King, it was a safe assumption Riggs could defeat King also. So King refused. Riggs put the pressure on, offering a higher purse to take place in the demonstration until finally the thought of her pocket book overflowing became too much to handle and she accepted. It doesn't seem to me that the women's plight as a whole and in the sports arena was King's first deciding factor. She didn't see anything to gain until the pay was high enough and figured she'd take the movement on her shoulders as an added bonus. After all, plenty of women probably hated Riggs and needed a horse to put their hopes on. The match was to be played at the Astrodome in front of 30,000+ people and a TV audience of over 5 million. The whole thing almost failed to take place when King found out Jack Kramer, a former tennis pro of the Riggs era, was slated to be a commentator. Kramer was perhaps more genuinely unimpressed with women's tennis than Riggs himself, but instead of seeing that as a chance to make him eat his words, King demanded ABC take Kramer off the telecast or she wouldn't play. The match finally happened and King won 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 behind a plethora of demands, provisions, and a 25-year age difference while King was at the top of her tennis game. King benefitted highly from that match as a savior for women's sports. All I am saying is it may not be as rightly so as everyone would have us believe. Unlike the case of Kelly Kulick.

I brought up Billie Jean King's case to highlight how truly great Kelly Kulick's story really is. Right off the bat, we can eliminate excuses and demands. Kulick earned it, she didn't demand it. She entered the Women's World Championship in August and had to beat out a tough field just to gain entry into the TOC. Some of the bowlers she had to fend off were stars in their own right like Shannon Pluhowsky, Kim Johnson (the only other female to play the final round of a PBA event), Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (Del Ballard's wife), Michelle Feldman, Cheryl Daniels, Diandra Asbaty, Stefanie Nation, and Cathy Dorin-Lizzie. It's much harder to follow women's bowling, but these names are consistently at the top. Kulick outlasted all of them, topping Pluhowsky in the final. That was only half the battle on her way to history. Arriving at the TOC last week as the only female was probably intimidating enough, but she had to outbattle the best bowlers this sport has to offer without having time to relax. To compare this to tennis and today's tennis for even better reference, it would be like Serena Williams winning the Australian Open on the women's side and then joining the men's bracket at Wimbledon and winning the whole thing over players like Nadal, Federer, Roddick, Murray, etc. That is what Kelly Kulick did last week. In the qualifying rounds alone, she had to finish higher than Norm Duke (Hall of Fame), Patrick Allen, Bill O'Neill, Brian Voss, Robert Smith, Mike Machuga, Doug Kent, Jason Belmonte, Johnny Petraglia, on and on and on. Then in match play games to determine final seeding, she had to outlast Walter Ray Williams Jr (most titles in PBA history), Parker Bohn III (the floor commercial guy), Pete Weber, Tommy Jones, Jason Couch (3 straight TOC wins), Sean Rash, Wes Malott, and more. By Sunday's TV final, she was ranked 2nd out of 63 bowlers with an average in the 220s. Her first match was against the very talented Mika Koivuniemi, who has won multiple titles already. She took care of him. For the title she had to face Chris Barnes, who has won lots of titles, lots of money, and was Player of the Year 2 years ago. A very dangerous bowler. She exploded for a 265 winning score, while Barnes sulked with a sub-200 finish. Basically, Kulick had to defeat a slew of bowlers in the primes of their careers without letting the moment get the best of her. It didn't get the national viewers like Billie Jean King's accomplishment did, but it was a genuine tournament win over the sport's best males, not a gaudy demonstration with an over-the-hill loser like Bobby Riggs. Kulick proved herself more than any woman before her.

I Won't Pet Your Dog, and I Won't Say Hello

After a holiday season that included unhealthy eating of the most unnecessary degree and a minimum of actual movement, I finally rang in the New Year sensibly with an hour and a half long trail walk in the mid-morning hours. The blanket of fog blowing across the path made the barren trees and tall grass all the more eerie, and I played music in my headphones to fit the circumstance. Of course, while trying to become one with my cerebral extensions, I found myself gingerly avoiding the onslaught of fellow walkers with dogs leading them into my path in the opposite direction. I probably came across ten or so dogs over the course of this walk, and only two of them were on actual leashes: the pair of dachshund wiener dogs you could probably fit in a pillow case. But obviously, the medium to large dogs were either completely off the leash or, in sad attempts by the owners to be responsible, hooked up to those extendable wire leashes that allow their pets to walk freely for like 25 feet in any direction. At one point, I rounded a corner and was met by a big wolf-looking motherfucker with one such leash, who proceeded to get in a crouch upon the site of me and growl. This thing looked like it was built for the Iditarod, not the morning leisure stroll. I took a step back and waited for an owner to do something about it, but when my eyes followed the leash down the path, I saw a small woman standing still, waiting for ME to do something. She was uncomfortable with my presence, and I grant her fairness in some respects. I am tall, shaggy, and I habitually walk with purpose so maybe that can be construed as criminal behavior. Having said that, I could see she had no intention of reeling her dog in to let me go, so I had to walk well off into the side brush to continue. She still wouldn't move as I approached, staring me down the whole way. I said ,"thanks for that" as I passed, then turned around to see her start walking again.

I can't tell if I prefer that type of encounter when walking or the more frequent occurrence of the unleashed dogs running freely towards me. I admit most times these dogs are harmless and would probably welcome my petting, but I am at a point in my life where I simply don't see the positives of reaching my hand out to a strange animal. At the moment, there are only two dogs in the world I will touch without a second thought. All the others can piss off. On this walk, I would see dogs coming at me, and I didn't know what their mindset was. I would step to the side while the owners caught up, they'd smile at me with that, "don't be a little bitch" look and continue on. I don't give a shit. I don't know you, I don't trust you, and you have a big animal with teeth roaming at will. Basically, eat my ass. I was bit by my friend's rottweiler in high school, my mom had her arm shredded by a friend's dog more recently, and about six months ago I came across a stray with no tags on the very same trail who made a charge at me while barking. I had to pull the alpha male thing and run right back at it while yelling, so it knew who would win. And I should put my hand out haphazardly to find out if your dog will accept? No, thanks.

Finally, I don't understand the constant social requirement of passing walkers to say hello to me and thus expect a cheery reply back. I just want to proceed down the path. I don't care about greeting you. Is it because we share the physical act of walking that you feel the need to say something as you pass me? Like we've been through some sort of joint effort at the same time that it requires acknowledgment? We both got up this morning, put on a pair of shoes, and went outside. That's the extent of it, can we please move on now? I completely ignore people when I pass them. I want my focus to remain on my music and the scenery, not your chipperness. I hear people say hello as I pass, and I don't care. I want to be left alone. I'm walking alone, you're walking alone, let's keep it that way. I like people walking in pairs, because they have each other to bother with and aren't as inclined to say anything to me. Happy fucking New Year.

What Would You Do?

This question sort of hearkens back to high school as well as a scene in Office Space. We all fill out these basic questionnaires to see what type of job will best suit us in the future. Essentially, it's answering the question: what would you do with your life if there were no financial repercussions, family obligations, or long term consequences of any kind? Every time I ask myself this, I come up with but a few answers: holing up and playing music all day or holing up and listening to music all day. As it stands, neither holds much weight in terms of real life possibility but I'll get back to that.

I am currently in a position broadcasting high school football games. Actually, the word "position" is giving the experience too much credit. I make enough money to put the required gas in my car to drive around the Bay Area to actually do these games, so it's not like there's financial gain. I guess it's no big deal. It's not like I've been making any money the last 9 months anyway. But I stroll up to the press box every Friday, wading through waves of annoying high school kids and parents in the 'burbs who think I am a child molester, and keep my mind busy by secretly hoping this isn't what my future consists of. By kickoff, I have spent a solid hour and a half gathering stats and information about both teams and the players on them. I am thankful to be doing color commentary, where my voice is only needed in long stretches during breaks in the action as opposed to play by play. I hate the sound of my voice but not as much as I hate researching these kids who are gunning for big colleges and possibly a future in the NFL. They don't know me. They don't even know I exist. This shit shouldn't bother me, but it does and that is the way a life in sports broadcasting is gone about unless you are working in Bristol, CT. It just feels weird to know so much about athletes when they are hardly, if at all, aware of me in any way. I work with a great play by play man who, like many I've met in these circles, truly wants to get ahead in this niche. He wants every connection, every in, every contact there is to be made along the way so he can forever be the guy who delivered play by play for a bunch of unsuspecting athletes whose focuses always seem to be on the game only. I'm not in that gung ho boat of broadcasting. I got a degree in this field to have a more applicable craft, but it doesn't feel all that natural to me. I am not like my play by play partner, who shows up to each football game to get more experience under his belt for a future career. I show up every Friday hoping to see a good football game, and so far I'd say 2 out of 6 this season have been fun to call. I definitely draw a parallel between these feelings and the musical endeavors I undertook in high school.

Before I got to high school, I simultaneously played oboe for 2 years and sang in a boys choir in middle school. These weren't my first school music groups, but they definitely came at a time when I was ready to take things more seriously. My main focus was on oboe, which I not only played every day after school but also took private lessons for on a biweekly basis. It felt pretty intense, but I like being able to say that at least for 2 years, I could read music accurately. My playing got decent praise from the band director, but the instrument I used was rented and by the time we packed up and moved across the country, the last thing on my mind was continuing oboe (or soccer for that matter).

High school brought a whole different experience into my musical understanding. There was a critical moment at the end of freshman year where I had to decide between trying out for the show choir called Chanteurs or putting my efforts more toward athletics. I felt I could improve my basketball game enough to make varsity and take track and field more seriously, but after a year of being in the classical choir, there were Chanteurs members trying to heavily recruit me. I was hesitant, because my dancing is decidedly average at best and Chanteurs used a lot of it. My voice was decent enough in a group setting, and maybe they felt they needed some bass backup. Their efforts paid off, as I tried out in the Spring of '97. I got in not realizing the commitment required to perform in this group, but it was all for a great memory now that I think about it again. My biggest regret is not stepping up my game in the dancing department. In the practice studio was a huge mirror which we used to practice our dance routine. All the focus was on smiles and smoothness and jazz hands, only I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I knew it was ugly, so instead of using the mirror to my advantage in order to improve, I just checked out the hot girls instead. Why lie? The only problem with that approach is that many of our performances were filmed for home viewing, and boy do I look stupid. It is so obvious how full of shit I am on those videos that I actually feel bad for the other members. If any members from my era come across this, I'm sorry about that. I was at my strongest on the ballads and songs which required no dancing. I looked like everyone else instead of the horrible dancing white guy with the bad haircut. And while I was at fault to a certain degree on that end, I didn't feel I was fully to blame. All the way through high school, every piece of music I performed was written, arranged, and created by someone else. The songs meant nothing to me, so how could I be expected to look like I was all about it? We'd get up there and sing religious songs during the holidays, and I was supposed to look like I was really feeling it. I wasn't religious back then, nor am I to this day. I was full of shit to a certain degree but not in those cases. I simply had no choice in the matter.

By the time I got to college, I was both weirded out by the fact that the main driving force in my life for the past 3 years was suddenly over and exhausted from it as well. Only after I stopped did I realize how intense the schedule was. I played intramural volleyball, snuck alcohol into dorm rooms, started playing bass guitar, and was introduced to music that didn't require sequin vests and session musicians. It is now making me think of that "what would you do" question. It is rooted in playing in some awesome bands throughout college and up until last year. As awesome as Chanteurs was in high school, it didn't provide enough creativity on our parts. We were given the music to sing and given the steps to dance. I'm not sure it could be any other way in that setting, but being part of the writing process is really what makes music special.

To answer that question, it has been suggested that I really take it up seriously and learn music from an institutional standpoint to step it up a notch. That is a good idea, but I feel what I want to play doesn't require all those resources to be lost. I am not classically trained nor do I have supreme chops, but I can write the type of music that I would hope to be known for. The whole idea of classical music is still quite strange to me. Here you have perhaps the most gifted musicians in the world playing music that was written for them instead of by them. I respect the hell out of their playing ability, but I seriously question if they are able to make it up themselves. Not only that but the audience they cater to confuses me. Over the summer, I went to a concert in the park with my family, in Arcadia of all places. I probably hadn't been there in 8 years, so that alone was strange. We get into the park and the music was great. Live classical music really is good stuff, but it received little more than golf claps. Then, they announced the show was over and as people started getting up to go, the orchestra began playing "We Are the Champions" by Queen. After a great set of classical music with so-so response, the crowd then came to life with a pop rock song and put their lighters in the air like it was 1976 all over again. It also reminds me of classically trained studio musicians, who spend their whole lives recording commercial jingles and hoping for big exposure breaks to come along, as in being in the background while Ashley Simpson does a song on Conan O'Brian. This is why I don't go to school for music. Being attached to what I'm writing is more important to me than being good at what I'm playing. I guess that's why I'm sitting here bitching about it as opposed to doing something about it. So basically, I've accomplished nothing other than some good writing time. Guess I'll take it.

Funeral Doom at 28

I am coming up on another birthday tomorrow. It's kind of weird every year where you just think to yourself, "Wow it's actually here" in a way that is increasingly more forlorn than it was growing up. I have this unhelpful new habit where I research musicians, actors, and any artists, living or dead, to see what they were up to when they were my age. I check their filmographies and discographies and think back to where I was and what I was doing at the same age they were getting recognized for their respective creative outputs. Does that make enough sense? Of course, turning 28 has had me thinking about "the curse of 27" in regards to the four music icons who died at that age: Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Actually, technically, I have now outlived all of them, but turning the literal age page tomorrow will make it official. It's annoying thinking about how much they accomplished by this age and how little I have in the same span. So to piss myself off even more, I made a quick list of dead musicians who have had a lot of influence on me and who wasted no time in pumping out awesome songs and albums by the time they were my age. True, most of them lived past the age of 28, but true also that they achieved greatness in my ears by then. I was trying to come up with 10, sort of like a game of David Letterman Mortality Checkers, but I topped out at 8. I didn't want to throw in two extra people I cared little about just to make it. I'm not trying to make it sound like I don't care about them, but I just don't have that emotional attachment. I won't take away what Jimi Hendrix did for rock music, but nothing particularly draws me to his style. John Lennon would be another easy one, but I happen to think the Beatles are one of the most overrated, overcredited music acts of all time. It's tragic what happened to John Lennon, but I'm trying to put the scope of the work in the context of my appreciation for it. I wasn't alive in the '60s, so from a purely objective point of view I think the Beach Boys had more going for them than the Beatles in a musical sense. So it's a tribute to the top 8 musicians in my world who own a piece of my life, did so while they were younger than 28, and whom I wish were still here for more perfection. Their demises were a combination of bad choices and bad luck, and I miss them and their music. I didn't know them but I still do.

8. Cliff Burton, Metallica bassist, 1962-1986. Cliff was the busy bass man in the biggest metal band of the '80s. Incredible finger agility helped produce the low end on classic albums Kill Em All (when he was just 21), Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets. A bus crash ended it in Sweden.

7. Chuck Schuldiner, frontman of Death, 1967-2001. When it comes to writing death metal songs, Chuck Schuldiner is still unmatched. In a genre where most bands focus on trying to be the fastest, most technical, and most brutal, Chuck let those bands exist while he destroyed them with 7 masterpiece albums starting at the age of 20. Luckily, the band's final opus with Chuck, The Sound of Perseverance, came out when he was 31 so I still have time to match that. Not. Cancer came into the picture, and that was that.

6. Layne Staley, Alice In Chains singer, 1967-2002. With Nirvana and Pearl Jam came Alice In Chains, a seminal third option in the explosive grunge era. More haunting and introspective than his Seattle brethren, Staley appeared on albums that have stood the test of time such as Dirt (1992, 25 years old) and Jar of Flies (1994, 27 years old). Considering his lyrical content detailing his biggest vice, it probably surprised no one that his death was drug related in 2002.

5. Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy singer/bassist, 1949-1986. As far as I can tell, Thin Lizzy revolutionized the way dual guitars were used in rock and metal. Phil Lynott backed up that attack with great bass lines and ridiculously infectious vocal parts. Starting in 1971, when Lynott was just 22, the band released at least one album every year of fiery influential rock through 1981. This includes 1978's Live and Dangerous, still my favorite live album to date. Despite or because of their success, Lynott was heavy into drugs and alcohol and it caught up with him.

4. Jim Morrison, singer for The Doors, 1943-1971. The turbulent times surrounding the United States while The Doors were around make me wish even more I could have been around to witness this band. Jim Morrison managed to sound like a wild man on record; I can only imagine what he was like in person. He was the poet behind a plethora of great songs that uprooted the happy flower power attitude of California and gave the movement some sustenance and balls, all while Morrison was in his mid-20s. As many people do, I remain confused by the details of his death, but he was 27 and ahead of his time on the lyrical spectrum.

3. Witold "Vitek" Kieltyka, drummer for Decapitated, 1984-2007. One of the first bands to pique my interest in brutal death metal was Decapitated from Poland. Much of the reason they did can be attributed to Vitek, who was a furious master blaster and could vary his feet rhythms on the double kick mid riff. I listen to his chops and just say, "holy shit" to myself over and over. Really, that's all you can say. He recorded two masterpiece albums , Winds of Creation in 2000 (16 years old) and Nihility in 2002 (18 years old) at an age when most of us are barely driving. He died as Cliff Burton did, in a tour bus accident, traveling to show while in Russia.

2. Kurt Cobain, singer/guitarist for Nirvana, 1967-1994. This one is fairly obvious, but it took me awhile to realize the social impact and scope of his passing. I was only 12 when he killed himself, so understanding what it meant was difficult back then. I can hear now why he was chosen as the voice of that early 90s generation. People were growing up, and you can only listen to 80s spandex butt metal for so long. Cobain had a great knack for songwriting, and I often wonder what direction his music would be going in if he was still alive today. The thing I feel most sorry about is the fact that Cobain had so many strangers who hung on his every move and word but no one he could lean on to help him avoid what eventually happened. He was apparently not ready for the fame and fortune that followed his music, I just wish he could have pep talked himself into a contented middle area.

1. Jon Nodtveidt, vocalist/guitarist for Dissection, 1975-2006. When I first started listening to metal, it was of the death metal variety. All fast, all the time, constant brutality. It took finding this band to realize I am more of a black metal fan, and Dissection did it better than any band I've heard since. A perfect combination of thrashy goodness, icy riffs (they are Swedish after all), and atmosphere, Nodtveidt was the lead songwriter for all their material. At 18 years of age, he recorded The Somberlain, a formidable first offering in what was, at that time, a new and untested genre. Two years later, the masterpiece that is Storm of the Light's Bane arrived, and even though I wasn't a fan of this band until 10 years after the fact, it remains the main reason why this band is unrivaled for me. Then Nodtveidt went and did some stupid shit. He was an accessory to murder, in what capacity I don't know. He spent 7 years in jail and reformed the band upon his release. In 2004, they recorded an amazing live DVD from Sweden which showcases beautifully the ease with which Nodtveidt could destroy an audience and make them beg for more. He killed himself in the same manner Kurt Cobain did, and I'm still pissed about it because I never got to see Dissection live.

I didn't make this list, because I want to become a famous musician. Well, I wouldn't mind that but in no way am I banking on it happening. I'm just impressed with how talented these individuals were at a younger age than I am now. I am really thankful they were able to put these records and songs out to be appreciated before succumbing to the forces that be. If there is an afterlife of any kind and they get word that some loser in the East Bay is throwing a shout out to them, I hope they can be happy about it.