Fake Tuomas

Although I was one zillion percent sure it was a fake, I sent a friend request into "Tuomas Holopainen's" Facebook profile. What ensued has been quite amusing, and rather sad.

Amusing because this Tuomas A) has really bad English, B) he takes photos any idiot can find off the internet & posts them on his page (including pictures Anette Olzon posted on her blog, taken by Anette herself) and C) he appears to be successfully posing as Tuomas and getting all kinds of fangirls hot under the collar.

What's sad about this is said fangirls and the deception this Fake Tuomas is perpetuating. I knew this was fake from the start and had no fantasies that this was anything other than some duplicitous personage with a lot of time on his/her hands. Tuomas has said in various interviews how much he hates the internet and even, if memory serves, that he does not have Facebook or any other social networking profile. Anette has said more than once on her blog that no Nightwish members have Facebook profiles, and she reiterated this again today, here.

It's pretty pathetic - and actually mean-spirited, too, IMO - to do something like this, especially where fangirls are concerned. You lead them on, they get all hot & bothered, you get your ego stroked and your entertainment - all off the backs of legitimate fans who believe they are getting something real from you.

You also make the band look bad (which I realize for some people isn't a problem).

It also violates the terms of service, which is why I have reported Fake Tuomas to Facebook, but alas, in typical FB fashion, the reporting interface was vague and probably ineffectual, and I doubt this will have any real results. Ironically, Real Tuomas has to report this person himself, and of course, in order to do that, he has to have a FB account.

So consider this my little public service announcement and my good deed for the day, for the whole 4 people who read this humble blog: the Tuomas Holopainen you see on Facebook is a poser, not the real Tuomas. (I have to say, however, that if the picture this Fake Tuomas has posted of the Real Tuomas's new house is the real new house, I am in awe of it's architechture & gorgeousness, and, yes, even expressed this in a comment under the picture of the house on Fake Tuomas's FB profile. It is a legitimately beautiful house.)

Sorry to burst your bubble fangirls!

Metal from Canada: Borealis!

OK. About a year or so ago, I was trolling through Metal Archives looking to see what the landscape of Canadian metal was like. A very interesting journey indeed. I didn't like too much of what I heard to be honest. But I came across a few gems, and this band called Borealis, from Orangeville, Ontario, was one of them. After listening to their stuff on MySpace, I decided to order their debut CD, World of Silence. I was so impressed it wasn't even funny!

This is a young band with a bright future, I think. Fronted by the very talented Matt Marinelli, who also plays the guitar on their World of Silence album and with a strong line-up of musicians behind him, I seriously seriously hope these guys are the future of metal in Canada. And, I was so thrilled to see that they have been invited to Prog-Power USA this year - a festival I would DIE to go to, except it's in fucking Atlanta, Georgia - a zillion miles away from my little corner of Boonieland Canada!!! How frustrating! I also see on their web site that they opened for Sonata Arctica! This is very good news indeed!

I can also credit Borealis for helping me find Dawn of Destiny! I was listening to Borealis Radio on Last.fm, when "Lost" by DoD came on, and I was totally wowed. So, this has been a great find in more ways than one!

Here is a sample from Borealis's upcoming album, which according to the comments on YouTube, will be released sometime this fall. I can't wait!




Awesome!!!

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 30: My Favourite Song at this Time Last Year

Finally - the end!

I'm pretty sure the songs that were my favourites last year are still my favourites now, if my Last.fm stats are anything to go by. Still at the top of my mental list & my Last.fm Top Tracks list are Dawn of Destiny's "Rain," "Days of Crying," and "Lost"; Sonata Arctica's "Sing in Silence"; and then songs by bands that I've discovered in the last year, like Almora and Sabaton. And we all know of my love for Nightwish, so I won't bother posting anything from them here this time!

Let's go with a band I haven't listened to in ages, maybe even a year: Xandria! Xandria is a German Gothic-ish metal band, also currently without a permanent lead singer. They are a really underrated band, though, and I loved Lisa Middelhauve (she is the original singer who left and was replaced, then that replacement left, and now Lisa is filling in until a new permanent singer is found).This is "Now and Forever," a very cool tune I think I really need to become reacquainted with...



And that ends this meme! Now, on to bigger & better things!

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 29: A Song from My Childhood

I grew up on music pretty much the polar opposite of metal: my dad was a military man with Victorian sensibilities, so we listened to an awful lot of military marching band music and waltzes. I AM NOT KIDDING. Also, classic movie soundtracks, like Chariots of Fire. We also listened to a lot of Nana Mouskouri and Mireille Mathieu. Again, I am not kidding! My parents also adored Roger Whittaker and The Irish Rovers. Actually, I can credit the Irish Rovers for interesting me in Celtic music, Irish culture, and folk music in general, and I still have a really soft spot for Roger Whittaker.

I don't think I ever heard any metal until I was about 12 or 13 (which would have been about 1986), the height of hair metal/glam metal. I can't list all the bands from that era that I listened to, but I can tell you the one that amused my parents no end: Twisted Sister. They thought these guys were hilarious! We had this show in Canada back then that came on the CBC at 5pm every week night called Video Hits. They used to play this video every so often and it always got my parents' attention and we all had a family laugh!

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 28: A Song that Makes Me Feel Guilty

This was a tough one, which is why I procrastinated so long in posting this. No song really makes me feel guilty, at least no song that I know of so far in my life. But, for the purpose of this meme, we'll go with this track by Gothic metal band Satyrian (this video isn't exactly my bag, however...).

Dawn of Destiny Update!

Well, knock me over with a feather - a band member from Dawn of Destiny has left a comment on this humble blog! I am all aflutter!

The comment included a spelling correction in new co-lead vocalist Monika Wesely's surname. I was spelling it "Wesley" which is common in English, but I have been corrected and I corrected the mistake in the main post.

The commenter was also kind enough to leave some links to samples of Monika's voice, for which I am very grateful.

Here is Monika's MySpace page: Monika Wesely.

Monika also has some YouTube videos, and you can see her channel here.

Monika is a musical actress, and after listening to the samples of her voice on YT and MySpace, I am really excited about her collaboration with DoD, because she has a lovely, clear soprano, and I can totally imagine her singing the old DoD material!

So, thank you Anonymous/DoD for getting in touch! I really appreciate it!

Photo credit to this site.

EDIT/UPDATE, May 25, 2010: the band has posted a demo on their MySpace page called "Miracles", which features the new vocalists. You can listen here.

Come Cover Me: "Crucified"

After a ridiculously long wait, Amazon finally shipped the copy of Atargatis's Nova to me, and I am really enjoying listening to it. There is one song on it, however, that piqued my interest because the lyrics were credited to three people not in the band, with the date 1991, and the lyrics themselves were not printed in the booklet like the rest of their songs were. This is the song "Crucified." So, I did a bit of research and after a few dead ends, finally found out that "Crucified" was originally by a Swedish pop band called Army of Lovers, and for some reason, Atargatis had decided to cover this on Nova.

Kind of an...interesting choice, given the rest of the album's content, the theme of which I am still trying to piece together. Turns out, though, that Army of Lovers has an official video of "Crucified." When I watched it, I was a tadstunned. It is...for lack of a more polite term...bizarre. Here it is:



All righty, then...:|

Anyway, Atargatis did a pretty decent metal cover of this song, actually. Here it is:



Way better! If only they would make a video for it, to erase some of the images from the original video!

Carmen R. Lorch (ex Schäfer) leaves Coronatus

Some news from the symphonic/gothic metal community. After reading the post that Dawn of Destiny now has two singers, I was curious about Coronatus. So as I did, I just discovered that their long time vocalist, Carmen R. Lorch (ex Schäfer) , just left the group with this letter on their main website.

This leaves Coronatus without a vocalist as their other member, Lisa Lashe, left the group in January. So at this time, Coronatus has no vocalist(s).

Links:

Carmen's bio

Coronatus' last.fm page

Dawn of Destiny Replaces Tanja Maul with Two Vocalists

Big news about one of my favourite bands, Dawn of Destiny: after parting ways with the fucking amazing Tanja Maul, the band announced today on their MySpace & Facebook pages that they have replaced their previous vocalist with two female leads, Jeanette Scherff and Monika Wesely. There is little I can find about these two women after doing some cursory research. Jeanette Scherff was her own MySpace page, and I cannot find a single thing on Monika Wesely. I can't find YouTube or other samples of either gal's vocals.

So, this is interesting...I wonder if they are going the way of Coronatus, which also has two female leads, one classical soprano and one rock-style alto. But I am very curious to see what DoD sounds like now, so I hope they start releasing new stuff soon!

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 27: A Song I Wish I Could Play

I have always wanted to play the guitar, and when I get around to creating a bucket list (which I should stop procrastinating about) learning this instrument I think will be on it.

This is probably my favourite Nightwish instrumental piece, and Emppu does a fantastic job! I would love to be able to play this!

Ronnie James Dio dies at age 67 (1942-2010) R.I.P.

This is a sad day to hear for me and for millions of metalheads and fans around the world. Ronnie James Dio died yesterday on May 16, 2010 as a result of stomach cancer that he was diagnosed with last year.

Ronnie played perhaps the biggest part of influence for heavy metal singers for many years to come, including my favorite current vocalist Marco Hietala of Tarot and Nightwish. He was best known for his work in his band Dio as well as in Elf, Black Sabbath, Hear 'n Aid, Heaven And Hell, Munetaka Higuchi, The Vegas Kings, Ronnie & The Rumblers, Ronnie and The Red Caps, The Elves, Ronnie Dio & The Prophets, and last but not least Rainbow, who I did a post of a week ago.

Here was what Dio's wife Wendy had to say about his death on his official website:

"Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever."

R.I.P. Ronnie! You will always be one of my favorite vocalists. Your fans will never forget your amazing voice and the passion that you had for music! Even though you are not with us on earth right now, because of you metal will live on forever! \m/ And so will you.

Ronnie James Dio
1942-2010

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 26: A Song I Can Play On an Instrument

Way back in the mists of time, I used to play the flute. I really enjoyed it, but got out of practice and eventually sold my flute to someone who needed it more than I did, because all I was doing was carting it around wherever I moved and not using it, and I kind of thought it was time to let it go. I don't regret this too much, though once in a while I do wish I could have gotten it together & kept up with it. Ah well.

Anyway, somewhere in those mists of time, I seem to recall "Scarborough Fair" being in my lesson book. I have always loved this old song, and Leaves' Eyes does a particularly good cover of it, both a heavy version and an acoustic version.

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 25: A Song that Makes Me Laugh

A while ago, a friend of mine suggested I check out the show, Metalocalypse. Man, am I ever glad I did, because it's so brilliant! I love it so much, and there are certain episodes I turn to when I just need a good laugh because I know they will deliver, no matter how shitty I feel!

This song is from the first episode, and upon hearing it, I totally burst out in a fit of laughter. I mean, a death metal band singing "do you folks like coffee" and "scream for the cream?" It's fucking hilarious!

Here is the video. Enjoy!

Video Game Metal Covers: Eternal Champions- Title Theme

This is another cover of a cool song from the 1993 Sega Genesis game "Eternal Champions". I did this collaboration with Noe, who also does video game metal covers too. Enjoy!

Laugh of the Day

I found this on the Last.fm page of nDroae and I thought it was really funny.
I love it!

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 24: A Song I Want Played at My Funeral

There is a bit of a story behind this choice, but I won't go into it here. I'm not a huge Theatre of Tragedy fan, but I do love this song. And it has a funereal quality to it, too.

Underrated Metal Bands #7: Rainbow

Okay, some of you might be thinking, "How is this band underrated?", because a lot of people have heard of this band before. Well for one, Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P) needs no introduction at all, being one of metal's greatest singers of all time and also being one of my personal favorites as well. After all, he is the man that influenced Marco Hietala! Too bad he did not last too long with these guys before he was in Black Sabbath and his more famous solo project. His predecessors as vocalist (Graham Bonnet, Joe Lynn Turner, and Doogie White) could not even hold a candle to Dio, but they all have their own talents nonetheless. And of course the guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore, who was most notably known in the legendary rock band Deep Purple, who left them to form this band, and also his folk female-fronted rock project, Blackmore's Night. His influence on metal is beyond words as he really set the tone for future shredders like Yngwie Malmsteen, Timo Tolkki (ex-Stratovarius), Jari Maenpaa (ex-Ensiferum, Wintersun), and many more. Rainbow consists of one of the most underrated drummers of all time in Cozy Powell, a solid bass player in Jimmy Bain(who also played for Dio in the years to come), and numerous keyboard players over the years as well (Tony Carey being the most influential of them all).

Some of you may also be thinking, "No way, these guys are hard rock, not metal!". If you do not think they are metal, look here! Well in my personal opinion, Rainbow was one of the big major pioneers of heavy metal in the mid-70s and into today as well. Listen to the song "Stargazer" which is the featured video below, and you will see what I mean. Their style was a hybrid of progressive rock like Deep Purple, hard rock like Led Zeppelin, and metal like Black Sabbath at that time. They can fall into the rock category too, but they have that edge that seperates them from many other bands in that era. Rainbow's sound was very revolutionary, fresh, and melodic for their time and contributed to the start of the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" in the following years with legends like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, Def Leppard, Motorhead, and so on. One of my favorite finnish metal bands,Tarot, also credits Rainbow as being an inspiration for their band as well.

The reason I posted this is because I feel that Rainbow, though still moderately well known, has become shoved aside over the years and doesn't get the credit they deserve. This is one of Britain's greatest rock/metal acts along with Iron Maiden and Sabbath and is also perhaps one of the most underrated legendary classic bands of rock and metal. My personal recommendation is the album Rising. It features heavy metal masterpieces like "Stargazer", "A Light In The Black", and "Tarot Woman". For their time, they were a breakthrough band and gave Dio his claim to fame and rise to being a legend. But today, they are vaguely mentioned, which is a shame because they really did some amazing work in the 70's. Recommended for anyone into 70's hard rock/heavy metal, or just good music in general. Rock on! \m/



Links:

Rainbow's last.fm page

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 23: A Song I Want to Play at My Wedding

Let's get another one over and done with for the day! And this one is tough...

I'll go with Lacuna Coil's "Entwined." Not exactly the most romantic, happy, and positive outlook on relationships, but this song does kind of illustrate the complexity of relationships: the struggles, but also the sacrifices and "the ties that bind." I think this is a really beautiful, powerful song.

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 22: A Song I Listen to When I'm Sad

Short & sweet today:

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 21: A Song I Listen to When I'm Happy

Lyriel is a German folk metal band and I totally love their Autumntales album. Although this song has some sad lyrics, I find it to be quite uplifting to listen to, especially the epic instrumental outro that starts at 2:55. That part of the song just gets me going every time I hear it!

CD Review: Avantasia's Angel of Babylon

Well, I can give you a much more definitive assessment of Avantasia's Angel of Babylon.

It's bad. Really bad.

With this album, I feel like someone just stuck a sharp object in Tobias Sammet & crew and deflated them into something vaguely resembling a flat tire. The energy just isn't there in any song. It's bland, it's boring, it's almost bizarrely lame & cheesy. The only song I remotely thought was OK was the first track, "Stargazers," but even that was one of Sammet's weaker offerings here.

I didn't have super high expectations after listening to TWS, but this was surprisingly awful. Holy shit, Tobias: what were you thinking?

This CD and TWS were released together, but I don't think that was a good idea. My sense it that Tobias ran out of steam and just wanted to get this over and done with, because the quality of this album is just not up to his usual standards. It's half-assed-ness is very apparent in each track. I think all of Tobias's creative energy went into TWS and when it came to AOB, there wasn't anything left in the tank.

At least, that's how it felt to me.

And if there was any iota of a concept in this so-called trilogy, it is now as clear as sludge.

There is a female presence here, in the form of a certain Cloudy Yang. I had never heard of her before this album, and I am not terribly inspired to hear any more. Her song on AOB, "Symphony of Life" is one of the weakest songs on the CD. And that is all I'm going to say about that.

So, this is one unfortunate release, I am sorry to say. Even the cover art is not up to par with the previous two albums! I feel like I've wasted an hour of my life listening to this and I am upset!

A definite horns down. /w\

Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele dies at age 48

This news is a little old I know, but I just found out about this.

I was never that big of a Type O Negative fan myself, but the news of his death really shocked me! Whether you like his music or not, his input in the world of heavy metal/goth metal music is beyond words. His music influenced many bands for years to come.

He died on April 14, 2010 due to a heart failure. It seems that I got the news pretty late as I saw the news for it on MFF forum here. So anyways, RIP Pete. Your fans will never forget you!

Peter Steele (Petrus T. Ratajczyk)
(January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010)

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 20: A song I Listen to When I'm Angry

Yes, I love Linkin Park. Sue me!

This is a song I listen to when I'm angry, because it's a song about anger and for me, this strikes a lot of chords. This is also the LP track that initially got me into the band.

Underrated Metal Bands #5: Hevisaurus

Thanks to Sorcha's post on MFF forum, I discovered a very unique metal band from Finland named Hevisaurus. What makes these guys unique? For one thing, they dress up as dinosaurs. Second, they sing children songs in Finnish while playing kick ass heavy metal. Now THAT is awesome!



The band members of Hevisaurus are from people all over the Finnish metal scene, including Kiuas' guitarist Mikko Salovaara, Sonata Arctica's keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg, Stratovarius' keyboardist Jens Johansson, and Thunderstone's drummer Mirka Rantanen. That is a great lineup for a metal band as it is, and this project is just beyond epic win. Seriously, kids need to have this music in their school. Forget the traditional "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" or "Bingo was his Namemo" kind of songs. Kids should learn metal and GOOD music at a young age. It makes me sad that I never had this growing up. All I had was Barney!!! Damn!! :(



Not only are these songs for kids, adults can enjoy them too unlike most children songs where the songs are grating and hardly tolerable. These songs are actually kick ass and sound better than a lot of metal bands do even. These guys are fairly new, but I feel that I need to spread the word about this. These guys are on a mission, and that is to teach kids good music. The only thing I wish is that they make English songs because I know that if I ever have kids, this will be the music they will hear (along with most of the bands I like too ;) ). So move over Barney, you have been dethroned! ROCK ON! \m/

Links:

Hevisaurus's last.fm page

Hevisaurus' main website

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 19: A Song from My Favourite Album

OK, two posts for this meme today, because I kind of want to get this challenge over with so I can move on to bigger & better things!

My favourite album: Nighwish's Oceanborn. I have already posted two songs from this CD in other posts here, namely "Stargazers" in my Tarja post, and "Sacrament of Wilderness" in the post from Day 6 of this series. James did post "Sleeping Sun" in his bathtub video post, but I'm going to post "Sleeping Sun", too. It is in my top 5 Nightwish songs, is one of my favourite metal ballads ever, and it was on Oceanborn. This is the 2005 video, which is a little less...um...strange than the old version.

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 18: A Song I Wish I Heard on the Radio

Nominees for this category are legion. Because metal is not mainstream here, I could name any song I love from any of my favourite bands, but instead I'm going to have to narrow this down quite a bit so we don't get one long, drawn-out post.

On the more obscure (relatively) end of things, I will put an Almora song here, because this Turkish symphonic power metal outfit is probably completely unheard of in this country. And that's a shame, because they are unique and brilliant. I posted about them previously, here, when I posted "Tilsim" as one of my favourite songs. That track comes from Almora's Turkish language album Kiyamet Senfonisi, which, despite my not speaking the language, is my favourite album of theirs. Here is my second favourite song from that CD, "Sonbahar", which I believe translates into "Autumn" and which I would love to hear on the radio over here.

Happy May Day

While people protested all over the world today, this "day of the labourer," I spent some time feeling grateful that one of my jobs is unionized, pays well, and I don't have to go in too often to make it work for me. We don't have any big May Day traditions in Canada, so it's kind of a non-event here. Lots of European countries celebrate this as Walpurgis Night, with all sorts of community celebrations happening. On the Celtic calendar, however today is Beltane. For the Celts, this was the official start to summer, when the livestock were let loose for summer grazing, and bonfires were lit for various reasons - cleansing rituals and to represent the light heralding the longer days back to the land, to name two. It's a day for feasting and community, and like the other sabbats, a day that recognizes the powerful aspects of the natural world.

Bearing in mind this day's connection to nature, it is an interesting coincidence that today also saw the giant oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico reach the shores of Louisiana. The devastation will be unspeakable. Here we have the ultimate power struggle: Mother Nature versus Man.

I will always root for Mother Nature, even though we seem so intent on continually kicking her ass.

Thanks to Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation, I now envision Mother Earth as a headbanging metal mamma!

So, in celebration of all things natural and powerful, and in celebration of the coming of summer, the warmth, the longer days, and all the other stuff this season brings, and to show my support and passion for Mother Nature's fight against Man, her nemesis, here is Within Temptation's "Mother Earth."