ALBUM: “Are You Experienced” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
RELEASE YEAR: 1967
LABEL: Experience Hendrix LLC, Sony Music Entertainment
RATING: 10/10
BEST TRACKS: “Love or Confusion,” “Purple Haze” and “Foxey Lady”
FCC: Clean
There exist few better guitarists than Jimi Hendrix, the god of heavy rock himself. Along with being a fantastic solo musician, Hendrix had a band of his own, comprised of Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. “Are You Experienced” was their debut album, filled with some of the most influential songs in rock history. This album really shows off Hendrix’s seemingly impossible talent on the electric guitar along with his signature bluesy howl. “Are You Experienced” is the perfect combination of heavy rock, psychedelic music, and the blues.
Though many know Jimi solely for his guitar skills, he was also a fantastic poet and songwriter. Filled with lyrics that are simultaneously hallucinogenic, dreamy, and wanton, the instrumentals pair perfectly with the poetry that Hendrix so beautifully wrote.
The range on this album is incredible. From the classic hard rock anthem “Purple Haze,” to the upbeat “51st Anniversary,” to the sludgy psychedelia of “Third Stone from the Sun,” to the dreamy ballad “May This Be Love,” Jimi showcases his talent for performing music of all feelings.
My two personal favorites off the album are “Foxey Lady” and “Love or Confusion,” simply because the riffs are unmatched. You can really feel the passion behind his playing and singing, which I think the latter of the two people don’t give him enough credit for. The album was, and still remains to this day, an amazing feat of psychedelic, experimental rock.
As NC State finals are coming to an end, students are all anxious to finish their classes and get ready for winter break. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite recent reads so you have something to fill your days until the spring semester begins.
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
The Shining by Stephen King
The Lord of the Rings Collection by J.R.R. Tolkien
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Breaking Night by Liz Murray
The God Project by John Saul
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Game of Thrones Series by George R.R. Martin
Hope you enjoy my recommendations and find something new to read over your winter break.
Dropping Plates (from left to right): Ben Burrows, Forest Britt, Aaron Huntley, and Jake Fain.
Dropping Plates is one of the newest local bands on the scene in Boone, NC. I had the opportunity to have a delightful interview with them this week! Made up of bassist Aaron Huntley, drummer Forest Britt, lead singer/guitarist Jake Fain, and guitarist Ben Burrows, they bring a unique funk-rock sound to the table. Here’s what they have to say:
Q: Tell me about how Dropping Plates started.
Aaron: Me and Forest were roommates last year at App State. I was on Facebook, and I saw that Ben had posted this ad for a drummer and bass player to create a band. I’ve known Ben because I met him through a mutual friend, and we’d jammed in the past before. I recognized him and so I just hit him up and then we jammed. It was perfect.
Q: How would you describe the music you make?
Jake: A mix between Grateful Dead and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Aaron: I know that we like to vibe, we like to jam.
Forest: We like to jam a lot. There’s a lot of instrumental influence, especially guitar solos in all of our music. A lot of our music is from different fields. We’ll have a more rock-like niche feel that’s heavier, but then we’ll also have a lighter poppy feel. We also have songs that are slow and like, just chill. So it kind of depends, but I think ultimately each song does have our individual instrumental influences which ultimately make the band Dropping Plates.
Q: What’s the story behind the name “Dropping Plates?”
Jake: So basically we were all in a group chat and we were just throwing out names, like we probably had 150 names. I was going through and I picked my top three out or whatever and I sent them to my mom. She’s like a very good outside judge of those things to see, you know, what would draw other people’s attention the most. One of them was Dropping Plates and she picked that one.
Forest: And with the name Dropping Plates, when you hear the sound of a plate dropping and crashing you know what that sound is, right? We feel like that compares to our music. We’re hoping that when you hear our band you know it’s Dropping Plates.
Ben: We were also going to be Dino Trip at first, Dino Trip or Dinosaur Party. And then we were like…”No, Dropping Plates.”
Q: Tell me a little bit about your creative process. How do you guys make music? Where do you draw inspiration from?
Forest: Really, it’s different for every song. They write music on their instruments, and then bring it to the band. Then, when we come together after we work on the songs. Everyone kind of puts their own touch into that song. It just builds until it’s a complete piece. But there’s a lot of times when it’s already a complete thing, but we’re just adding our influences into it and our sounds. For the song “Spun”, I felt like Jake kind of had that song already finished for his guitar part. We all came together and Jake started playing the song, Aaron starts coming up with a baseline, and I’m listening to Aaron play his baseline and I’ll do my drum part. Then we’ll come up with melodic lines over Jake’s guitar part. Jake will just sing, and then we’ll be like, f*** yeah. Maybe we’ll tweak it a little bit for a few songs. There’s a song on our upcoming album called “Wave” and it used to be actually a really fast song that Ben wrote but then we decided to just pull it back and play it slow. Now it’s this really beautiful, slow piece that’s closing the album.
Ben: Yeah, I think all of us have different influences for music, which I think is really cool because then it adds to a melting pot of sorts. Aaron is a lot more into jazz and methodical playing and I’m a lot more feel and rustic type of deal. Jake is like the nice mixture of the two and more Grateful Dead oriented on that point as well. And then Forest, he’s just the feel master of it all. The idea that he has what he has just in his mind I think is very cool. We’re all able to bring our own identities to our music, which is so sick.
Q: Who are your biggest musical role models?
Ben: John Mayer and the Grateful Dead for me are my top two most influential artists.
Forest: For me Hiatus Kaiyote, and specifically the drummer. His drum stuff really influences what I’m doing.
Jake: I’d definitely say just a combination of Jerry Garcia and Trey Anastasio. So, Dead and Phish, just the combination of the two is my biggest inspiration for sure.
Aaron: I listen to a lot of jazz. This guy, Christian Scott, he just has this, like blaring music and it’s really cool. And Flea, obviously, from Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Q: What’s the most useless talent you have?
Forest: I do parkour. Throughout middle school I was really into it and throughout high school I taught parkour classes at a gym. I would say it taught me a lot about working with kids working on yourself physically, but like, ultimately, I can do a backflip. I don’t know how useful that is.
Ben: I work for a conservation group. That’s pretty useful though. I have a really fancy tool that helps me measure water quality and dissolved oxygen and all this stuff. So I basically just put it in the water and I take the data. I can also do a really mean Scooby-Doo impression.
Jake: Oh yeah, we’re also really good at Catan.
Aaron: Super Smash Brothers too, we’re also really good at that. I know a lot of random stuff about animals too. I can play bass and drums at the same time. I use my feet on the drums and I use my hands on the bass.
Jake: I know a dumb amount of random Grateful Dead and Phish facts that I can just impose upon people.
Ben: It’s the most useless skill ever. He’ll just say some s*** that’ll blow your mind and you’re just like, why do you even know that?
Q: Have you guys played any live shows?
Jake: We’ve played four actual shows and then we played a bunch of times for an open mic.
Ben: Our favorite gig was a State though. I actually went to State my first two years. I was in a band, they’re called Friendly Reminder, they’re pretty sick. Check them out. My friends asked me if we wanted to come down and play at some philanthropy thing for their fraternity. We got to do it and it was really, really, really sick. We just played really well. It was a big crowd, but that wasn’t even what made it great. We all felt just felt connected and it was really cool. Which is why we’re sad. We had 15 shows lined up for the last month and a half before COVID, like one to three a week.
Jake: Ultimately, I’d say that we’re like gearing towards trying to become a live band. We still want to do studio stuff, because I actually really enjoyed that more than I thought I would.
Ben: We want to play. This is what we want to do with our lives. We’ll go to any means necessary to do that and get a really cool following. The goal would be to have a cult following that’s super religious to us. I’d like to see the same 50 people at our shows every time.
Q: What are you working on right now? What does the future look like for the band?
Aaron: We got a single coming out soon. We also just dropped our second music video today, “Padlock.”
Forest: And then our album, which has these singles we’ve dropped like “Spun,’ “Padlock,” and this next single, they’re all going to be a part of an album, which I think we’re gonna drop in February. We’re actually also in the process of recording another album too that’ll be released in the summer.
Q: Anything else you want to world to know about Dropping Plates?
Ben: Follow us on Facebook. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our Spotify. And just come hang. Whenever all the social distancing stuff is over, we’re happy to hang out. We want to meet people and do cool things with music. We already have a community. We’re talking to a lot of other bands right now about playing shows together, and these are bands that are way better than us. It’s cool to recognize that people see our music as a promising thing and that they like our sound. It’s cool to finally realize that all of our hard work is being noticed.
Below is a link to their new music video to “Padlock,” along with their Spotify, Instagram, and Youtube channel. Check ’em out!
In a word, MASTERPIECE! The Death Metal masters of Doom, Obituary, released their best selling album of all time on April 21, 1992 – The End Complete. While the band’s first two records (1989’s Slowly We Rot, and 1990’s Cause of Death) have their most iconic songs, it is the third album where we find the sound, tuning, style, sludge grooves, and raspy gutterals that have made Obituary, literally, world famous. Over 550,000 copies of this album have been sold world wide.
When I was little, my first memory of Obituary was when my dad (“The O.G. Metalhead”) was playing Rotting Ways off of this album, and all I could say was, “this is scary!” All of their music has that creepy, eerie, horror vibe. Its like my love for horror movies, only its horror music. And The End Complete capitalizes on that darkness to deliver a truly horrifying 36 minutes and 17 seconds.
You will not find the usual lyrical content, here, that is the norm for Death Metal. Here, are the roars, screeches, shrieks, gurgles and pure agony as only John Tardy (vocals) can deliver. Layered behind, within, above, and below is the rhythmic hauntings of Trevor Perez (guitar), Allen West (lead guitar), and Frank Watkins (Bass). And the bruising beatings of Donald Tardy (drums) completes the terror. Interestingly, none of Obituary’s albums have warning labels, because there is no cussing or “controversial content.” This, Butcher Crew, is simply the sound of sheer horror!
The Track Listing will give you a taste of what’s to come:
I’m in Pain
Back to One
Dead Silence
In the End of Life
Sickness
Corrosive
Killing Time
The End Complete
Rotting Ways
Favorite Songs: I’m in Pain ; Sickness ; Rotting Ways
Rating: 10/10!! An Absolute Masterpiece!
Bonus – Iconic Obituary songs for your enjoyment:
Slowly We Rot ; Intoxicated ; Chopped In Half ; Cause of Death ; Back From the Dead ;
Contrast the Dead ; Redneck Stomp
What are some of your favorite songs off of “The End Complete?”
Phoebe Bridgers has entered the radar of many indie lovers this year upon the release of her second album “Punisher.” Her diary-like storytelling, sorrowful disposition, smooth vocals, and folky melodies combine to make top-tier indie music. So, join me on my journey to parse out the best of… Phoebe Bridgers.
“Motion Sickness”
What would a Best of Phoebe Bridgers be without her most well known single, “Motion Sickness”? This song, a mild expose of a toxic relationship, is one of her most melodically potent songs, and has a catchier chorus than most of her other works. Despite the upbeat sounding percussion and springy guitar, the song conveys the hurt that Bridgers went through during her relationship and her liberating herself from that hurt.
Favorite Lyric: “You said when you met me you were bored / And you, you were in a band when I was born.”
“I Know the End”
The closer on her sophomore album, “Punisher,” “I Know the End” is one of her more experimental tracks. The song starts out like most of Phoebe Bridgers’ tunes, a soft whisper of longing, but it builds up to be a metal song, complete with blood-curdling screams and heavy percussion toward the end. This ballad about Bridgers’ mental health and struggle with depression is chock-full of noteworthy and breathtaking lyrics, and is by far one of the best album closers I’ve ever heard.
Favorite Lyric(s): “I’m always pushing you away from me / But you come back with gravity” and “Windows down, scream along / To some America First rap country song.”
(cover of) “Friday I’m in Love” by the Cure
This isn’t technically a work of Bridgers herself, but her cover of “Friday I’m in Love” by the Cure is a refreshing take on the hit 90s rock song. Her soft vocals and the calming instrumentals feel like a breath of fresh air after a long day.
Favorite Lyric: “Dressed up to the eyes / It’s a wonderful surprise / To see your shoes and your spirits rise.”
“Kyoto,” “Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version)”
“Kyoto” would be the song I would recommend to anyone looking to get into Phoebe Bridgers’ music. This unusually upbeat track is juxtaposed with lyrics about her rocky relationship with her father. This horn-heavy track is perfect to scream-sing along to in the car with friends, and is my personal remedy for hard days. More recently, Bridgers came out with a strings only version of the song with Rob Moose. This more melancholy take on the song makes the lyrics all the more powerful and is definitely a tearjerker.
Favorite Lyric: “Born under Scorpio skies / I wanted to see the world / Through your eyes until it happened / Then I changed my mind.”
“Funeral”
This is definitely one of Bridgers’ saddest songs, as it is about the death of a close friend. This song seems to capture the darkness and light of grieving, and the feeling of celebrating a life publicly and mourning a death privately. This duality of grief is perfectly captured in the intro of the song, which starts out with a gritty reverbed electric guitar that flows into a melodic acoustic guitar. This track is one of my favorites from her debut album, “Stranger in the Alps.”
Favorite Lyric: “And I have this dream where I’m screaming underwater / While my friends are waving from the shore.”
“Garden Song”
“Garden Song” is exactly what it sounds like it would be, a melodic and warm song about hopes and dreams– an unusually positive theme for Bridgers’ discography, but a welcome one. This leading single is what drew me to her discography, although not thematically on par with the rest of her music, it most definitely is sonically typical of her work.
Favorite Lyric: “The doctor put her hands over my liver / She told me my resentment’s getting smaller.”
This is merely an overview of my personal favorites, so if you’re just getting into Phoebe Bridgers, by all means don’t stop there. If you’re dying to listen to my picks now, check out this playlist. She has worked on many other projects including Boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center. She has also collaborated with Fiona Apple, The 1975, Lord Huron and quite a few others throughout her career. Bridgers did just announce on Nov. 10 that she is releasing an EP of songs from Punisher with string instrumentals, which we got a sneak peek of with her releasing “Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version).” Although I am definitely late to the Phoebe Bridgers scene, I am just glad to be here and that I can absorb her artistry.
