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So yeah, the whole Elon Musk Buying Twitter thing. I haven't paid too much attention to it, but it did seem like a generally bad thing. Musk is a ridiculous attention whore who thinks he's hilarious with way too much money ($54.20 per share, get it?! 420! 🤣 LOL! LMAO!). Even though I don't really use twitter much anymore, I still browse it occasionally and know it can have some value if you put some effort into curating your feed and posting to a receptive audience. But overall, it's whatever.

I came across this article after seeing some rando getting roasted after questioning where Matt Levine acquired his research on M&A since it seemed so "naive" (a classic twitter move) and him just replying, in all lower case, "i acquired it at wachtell lipton." which is, apparently, the most profitable law firm in the world, specializing in complex corporate transactions. The rando has since deleted his tweet, of course:

Anyways, this article is pretty long, but does the best job I've seen of just laying all this bullshit out after Musk announced he was pulling out of the deal (insert obligatory joke about it being the only time he's ever pulled out here).

Steve Von Till is one of the guys from Neurosis. Neurosis is one of those bands I would always see metal dudes wearing shirts and patches from, but I never really listened to them. One day when I was in the record store around 1996 or so there was something awesome blaring fro the speakers and I asked the guy what it was. He said it was the new Neurosis album, Through Silver In Blood. I bought the cassette.

It was incredible. The next year at college in NYC, I had two cassettes — that and Great Southern Trendkill — and I listened to them on repeat for an entire year. Those albums are ingrained in me, forever associated with a challenging but memorable time of my life.

Before I was very familiar with Neurosis, my band had the privilege of playing with them. It was gnarly. They were so loud and heavy, with a full AV display and noise guy. I wish I would have known what I was experiencing at the time. Since then I've thankfully seen them a bunch of times, and even went down to SF to go to both of their 30th anniversary shows with a few of my doggs. And, without fail, at every show they'll play at least one song from Through Silver In Blood and it will just annihilate.

Ok, so Neurosis is incredible, and Steve Von Till is an integral part of that. He recently made a video where he went over 11 non-metal albums he recommends to folks who like metal. This is relevant to my interests. He clearly has good taste and deep knowledge of music, and most of the recommendations are things I'd never really known about or given much attention to.

I won't go over all the albums, but if it sounds like something you'd dig, check it out!

We went to southern california last week and I found some Rap Snacks, so I bought them. They were pretty good.

Failure – July 6, 2022, Hawthorne Theater

Failure is one of those bands that I discovered well after their prime. They released their magnum opus back in 1996 and I didn't hear of them until a dude in a band I was playing in played them in the tour van all the time. Like many of the "alternative" type bands from 90s, they were much heavier and more complex than they had any right to be. Back in my day, music had balls, etc. But seriously, looking back at big bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, Alice In Chains, Shudder to Think, and Failure, that shit was heavy. Of course, at the time, that stuff just seemed "normal" and "weak" compared to the ultra-heavy Slayer ripoff hardcore we were listening to instead. But in retrospect, it was shockingly thick and complex compared to popular modern day stuff.

So, I discovered the Fantastic Planet album around 2003 or so. At first it seemed like pretty standard post-metal, post-grunge type of stuff. But after a few more listens it started to click. A few years earlier, I discovered the Jupiter album by Cave In. Cave In had always been big in the hardcore scene, and I had always kinda written them off as a low rent Converge. But when I searched for Cave In on Napster and downloaded the Jupiter album, it wasn't what I was expecting at all. At some point they had morphed into some sort of post hardcore band with a really spacey type of sound. It was still heavy, but the vocals were clean and there were lots of guitar effects and stuff that seemed really unique. I loved it.

After listening to Fantastic Planet a bunch a couple years later, it clicked that, oh, Jupiter was just a tribute to Failure. The influence was hugely apparent once I realized what was happening. Not to diminish Jupiter, it's still great, but I learned that Failure was much more important that I had known.

Fast forward another 20 years and I'm seeing Failure. It's my second time after seeing them like 5 or 6 years ago here in Portland. This time, of course, is after the 3 year drought of live music and another new record from them.

When I got the notification that Failure would be playing the Hawthorne Theater here in Portland, I was both stoked and surprised. The Hawthorne is generally reviled by lots of folks here in town. It's pretty small and the sound isn't as good as many other venues. It definitely seemed like a step down from the Wonder Ballroom where I saw them last. But that didn't matter to me, I wasn't going to miss them.

I arrived to the theater right around 8pm when it was supposed to be starting. I assumed there would be an opening band, and the time sheet listed Documentary: 8:30 - 9, Failure 9 - 10:30. I bought a drink and stood up front waiting for some band named Documentary. Failure's drums were already set up, so I figured they were some sort of duo with a drum machine or something.

The lights went down and the screen in back of the stage started to show a Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they're in space getting Space Madness or something. It went way longer than I expected... it seemed like almost half of the episode. When it finally stopped, no one came out and the video continued with a person from Paramore talking about the influence Failure had on her and her band. Huh. And then it cut to a clip of Butch Vig and co. from Garbage. Then it clicked... there wasn't an opening band named Documentary, it was an actual... documentary.

It went for the allotted 30 minutes or so. It was both really cool to hear from lots of different bands (and even Rick Beato, who everyone in the audience cheered for and was the only person in the documentary who got any sort of reaction lol) talk about how much of an influence Failure had on them and how much respect they had for them over the last almost 30 years.

But it was also kind of ... weird. Like, the documentary was effusive, almost hagiographic, which seemed odd for the band to immediately come out and play after. But, I suppose they also deserve the praise. Much of the stuff the people said was how they were essentially overlooked. A band's band. A group who made an essentially perfect record and then imploded due to drug use and infighting without ever receiving their due. Which is all true.

So, they came out and started playing. I was taken aback by the stage setup at that point because the drums, which were clear, acrylic vistalites of some sort, were really close to the front of the stage, and there were no amps on the stage. Like, none. Huge pedalboards and mic setups, but no amps at all. Which seemed weird for a heavy guitar driven band like them who were lauded for being super loud with their walls of amps only a few minutes prior in the documentary.

They sounded great, though. My spot right up front threw off the mix since I could hear the drums by themselves louder than though the PA, but no corresponding amps to balance it out. I'm sure the mix was much better back in the room where everything was through the PA, but it was kinda jarring right up front. But I got used to it.

They played for about an hour and a half total. The first hour was all stuff from their most recent albums and their earliest album. Which is all solid. But, we were all there to hear stuff from Fantastic Planet.

Fantastic Planet, as mentioned earlier, is essentially a perfect album. There are a few albums I consider to be pretty much perfect — Siamese Dream, Protestant, 9 Patriotic Hymns for Children, Tidal, Through Silver In Blood, for example — and Fantastic Planet is definitely in that upper strata. The songs are well crafted, the recording is good, and there's a continuous thread throughout that just feels very intentional and well executed. There's just something about it.

My dream was that they'd be playing the whole thing. The first hour of all the newer stuff shattered that, of course. But when they went off for the requisite encore thing, they came back and said "So, we didn't play anything from an album we did back in 1996. We're going to play the last third of it now, if you don't mind."

Aw yeah.

It was amazing. By then the sound was more dialed in (and I was more used to the mix) and the songs just soared. And, yes, it's their big hit, but Stuck On You just fucking crushed. They did the thing where they supplemented the bass electronically or something, and it was just so heavy and perfect. It was one of those things where I would have been perfectly happy to pay the ticket price for that one song and then gone home. Luckily it was accompanied by another 1:25 of excellence.

While we were in socal we made the required pilgrimage to Disneyland. It's weird after growing up down there and having annual passes. What used to be a "do you wanna go to disneyland and get some pizza" type of thing is now a Big Expensive Vacation Activity thing for us. That said, I love going to Disneyland. It's a nice escape and I enjoy seeing all the design details and stuff.

So we bought the tickets and made the reservation. After talking to some folks, we learned they no longer have the FastPass™ system. Instead you have to spend an extra $20 per person to be able to schedule times you can use the Lightning Pass™ lines. And if you want to go on the new Star Wars ride with a shorter line, you spend another $20 per person. God dammit. We bought the regular one.

Turns out it was probably the best Disneyland experience we've ever had. The weather wasn't too hot, there weren't tons of people, and the lighting lines actually worked pretty well. We bought tons of snacks and went on lots of rides, and finally saw the star wars land. It was pretty cool! And the little dude spent some of his birthday money on building a light saber:

The Millennium Falcon ride is pretty cool. Kind of like a $10M version of Space Team. The kiddos were the pilots and Jen and I were in charge of pushing flashing buttons to shoot stuff. Felix didn't quite understand the whole "pull down to go up" thing so we were crashing everywhere. It was a lot of fun.

- Toby

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