Email to a Friend

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

BYT editorial process while Cale and Dakota are at Spinal Tap and Libby is trying to reopen her eyes from all the allergies:
Svetlana: Feature-we don’t have one for tomorrow.
Jason: Maybe something about masks.
Svetlana: It is 10 pm on a Wednesday, I have 18 things to write for tomorrow, we cannot start a post from scratch now
Jason: Maybe we can just rerun something that was not a feature but was awesome. SLATE does it all the time.
Svetlana: Yeah, I guess we could combine Dan Deacon & Future Islands into a show preview or run some backed up photos or maybe that epic bands tip stuff Morgan wrote
Jason: EPIC tips
Svetlana: DONE.
(Re)enjoy

^{additional art by the one and only Boris Vallejo}

Look, DC bands. I love you guys. I have for a while, and you know this. But Monday night I went to JAXX (a venue with, conflictingly, both stringent alcohol restrictions and a website address that reads JAXX ROXX DOT COM) and saw Dragonforce. They looked and sounded like this:

And then my life was different. Did you ever read that Chuck Klosterman book where he lists the 23 questions he has to ask people to decide whether or not he can really love them? And there’s one about would you rather “blah blah blah” or have every song you ever hear for the rest of your life sound, in your mind, as if it were sung by former Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley? Do you see where I’m going with this? It is now my personal mission to get all of you to approach and/or directly replicate Dragonforce’s level of fucking EPICNESS in your own live performances, and I will begin this quest by relaying to you the Top 5 Things I Learned At the Dragonforce Show:

1. The More Hair You Have, the More Fucking Epic You Are. John and Paul Thornley, you have great hair. It flows, it moves around a lot when you play, the girls dig it. But it is far from enough. The more US Royalty collectively resembles Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, the better. Also, and this goes for Title Tracks and Middle Distance Runner as well, your stage presence is too…I don’t know. I guess I just don’t feel UNCOMFORTABLE enough when you’re onstage. None of you look like you’re having akward, sweaty, long-haired, professional-wrestler-style sex with your instuments, and that means you’re falling far short of epic. Get it together.

2. Audience Appreciation is Fucking Epic. You will never overhear a girl bragging about her boyfriend’s Hot Topic employee discount in the bathroom while Greenland or fffever or The Laughing Man are playing, and that’s because those bands are comprised of gentlemen. Babes who wear Jagermeister thongs don’t go to shows where guys don’t spit gallons of water directly into the audience throughout the entirety of their set, and they certainly don’t feel your love when your lead singer doesn’t stand alone at the edge of the stage, EROTICALLY pouring bottle after bottle of water on his black tank-topped chest after you’ve finished a 25 minute long, 2 song-encore. It’s called Respecting Your Fans, and you need to figure it out.

3. Bigger is Better, and is also More Fucking Epic. Sure, I love New Rock Church of Fire’s smoke-breathing dragon as much as any of you. But that shit is too small. Dragonforce played last night under a DRAGONFORCE LOGO’D BANNER that was leaps and bounds bigger than the ENTIRE STAGE. I don’t even know how they fit it in the club. Plus NRCoF (to say nothing of Bellman Barker) only has like ONE of EACH INSTRUMENT. Dragonforce had a keyboard AND a keytar, and at least 9 (fine, 2) bass drums. This should be standard. John Powers doesn’t even HAVE a drum set, which is bullshit, and the next time I go see Benjy Ferree I don’t even want to THINK about being able to see Laura Harris through the jungle of her 1,000 Zildjian cymbals. I have better things to do.

4. Unnecessary Showmanship is Totally Fucking Epic. It goes without saying that bands like Edie Sedgwick, The Points, and Exactly bleed stage presence. Their antics, however, barely approach the tiny tip of the mammoth iceberg of epic that is Dragonforce. I’m going to need to start seeing dueling keyboard and bass solos (while, presumably, the cool kids have gone offstage to get high); I’m looking for intense and synchronized jumping, ON REPEAT; I have to witness hair fans on stages besides Nihilitia’s. And why, Ra Ra Rasputin, do you never play guitar with your tongue? I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS.

5. You know what? There is no number 5. I want to use the space where I WOULD have written number 5 to simply thank Rattler for existing, and to ask them to start playing more than twice a year. Because Rattler, you are Fucking Epic. I salute you.

p.s. watch out for some amazing Mastodon coverage later today

Email to a Friend

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•