MUSIC CRATER FANTASTICA: THE DAY THE NEW BAR WAS SET
This is an image caption for Mon the Biff
Warning: Column behavior has invaded this crater post and created quite the column-like crater read.
What better way to set the crater afloat then with the most epic musical crater re-enactment on this side of my laptop....
Several years ago, I was employed to program music ambiance for events, with the main client representing the world of live music cruises. To do an extremely legit job, it's a great deal of work. In addition to the old personal music bank, knowledge and instincts, it always includes the need to research, going back decades. My musical rabbit holes can evolve into craters.
One Saturday evening (Yes! Saturday!) back in 2013 I was imbibing some Woodford and doing this musical labor for the Kid Rock Chillin' The Most Cruise. I crossed the British band Oceansize in my library. This is a band that had earned my fandom for many years. It made me wonder. I knew the band had broken up, but these guys were way too good to individually disappear into the musical sunset. So let's do some quick wik-a-peed-age. (I know, it's not a perfect source, but still a damn good one for my needs). I find out the singer/guitarist/co-songwriter Mike Vennart had recently joined a Scottish band as a "touring" guitarist and "back-up" vocalist. My first thoughts were "what the hell?", this band must be a pretty sick unit to have Mike Vennart join as just their touring guitarist and back-up vocalist. I remember that band name for sure and knew they had been established for years in some capacity, because as part of the music programming gig, I consistently received an enormous amount of music from all types of record labels. One record label sent me a CD of this band several years earlier (amongst a box of 30), and I never got to it. Still had it stacked in my office. I recallled passing uneducated initial judgment on the material, thinking they were just another run of the mill pop punk band. I honestly don't know why, but I am copping to my actions. Now that I was staggering around this band's Wikipedia page. I see that this band actually became a stone cold big deal in Europe by 2013. Well ok, maybe I need to listen to some music already, right? Let's do the new record they just released. That makes sense.... and we're off!!!
Almost four hours later, with a few more Woodfords, and zero actual programming work done, I was still found in my home office rolling through a front to back album listen again... following the prior again and again and again. The songwriting, musicianship, instrumentation, lyrics, vocals, harmonies, anthems, production, meshing of genres... to me, it was borderline hypnotic how incredible this entire album was. Fast forward to the present day, my opinion hasn't changed. In my well-worn bubble, this truly remains the most legit album of all time.
BIFFY CLYRO - "Opposites" … (IMPORTANT: Original 2013 release with 15 tracks, NOT the rather stupid deluxe re-release with 57,000 tracks)
I now possess every Biffy Clyro album and have hopped on a plane twice to take in a few live shows. The brilliant Mike Vennart has also provided me solo records that are bastante excellente. Just me, but I think that was a rather worthy crater exploration. Oh... and it seems Mr. Vennart made a good choice on partaking in that gig.
It is fascinating how a five-minute unexpected time investment can alter such a portion of your existence. It actually applies to life itself. Small decisions.
