------ ---------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | .......METALSCENE CENTRAL PRESENT'S........ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- ------ _______ ______ _____ _____ ___ ___ |\ ___ \ ___ \ | __ | | __ \ | __ \ / _ \ | | | \ | | | |__) / | |_\| | | \ \ | |_) ) | |_| | | | | \| | | __ < | / | | | | | __ < | ___ | | | | | | | \ \ | |_/| | |_/ / | | \ \ | | | | | | | |\ | | | /_/ |____| |____/ |_| /_/ |_| |_| |_/ |_| | | | / \ | |/ \| Issue 04/2000 http://metalscene.tsx.org galahad@netppl.fi / gregjesko@clds.net / rickhal@videotron.ca Contents: ---------- * Editor's Note * Quick News * IRC Meeting VII Info * Spiritual Annihilation Info * Tracker Development News -Impulse Tracker 3 -Fast Tracker 3 * Interview With Einherjar * Song Reviews * Articles -SID Soundcard for PC -Courtney Love Does the Math: Part Two -Netscape 6: Pre-Release 2 * Game Review - Diablo 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------ EDITOR'S NOTE ------------------------------------------------------------------ As you can tell from the contents there is something new... Game Review. Whether it will stay or not who knows. We'll just see how it works out. Also notice the song reviews are back. ;> On a side note I recommend checking out the band Nile. These "freaks" even play on skulls and bone flutes and wicked stuff in one the their tunes. Album is called "Amongst the Catacombs of the Nephren-Ka." Organizer note: Thought this would be a good place to make a question to all Red Rain subscribers. Do you want that RR is zipped when delivered or is it better as just plain text file? Throw me some answers to galahad@netppl.fi ------------------------------------------------------------------ QUICK NEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------ * WEB SPACE FOR METALSCENE CENTRAL Mister X at Modplug Central has helped us a lot by giving space for R.E.D. music disks. This will make sure that new music disks keeps on coming. * HOW TO GET MY TUNE REVIEWED? I was quite shocked when I heard that some of you don't know how the review system works with Red Rain. So once more, just send the direct URL to your song (for example: http://www.cocmaster.com/~cartman/fuckface.zip) to the main reviewer (rickhal@videotron.ca). That's all you have to do. We do not review single releases automatically. You have to send the address. Only music disks are reviewed automatically. This very same info is available on Red Rain web page with e-mail link and all. Take a look at there. * IRC MEETING VII IRC Meeting 7 will be held on August 26th. It's saturday. Event begins 22:00 finnish time. More information later in this issue or on MC site. Check it out! * LAST COMPO NOW Compo NOW 5 will end the Compo NOW series. Reason for this is simply the rather low interest towards the compo (compared to the success of DTC). If somebody's interested in continuing the tradition, MC is ready to give permission to do that. * MODULICA DELAY Hakan Productions latest cover disk project "Modulica" has been delayed. Deadline was pushed to August 14th, but the release should still happen during August. I don't know if the disk has already been released when this issue is out, but at least the tracking deadline was delayed. * GPLAYER I haven't abandoned the project. Just taking a break from it. I usually take a break from stuff and come back with a fresh perspective which helps gets things kickin again. ------------------------------------------------------------------ IRC MEETING VII ------------------------------------------------------------------ Metalscene Central invites you to IRC MEETING VII Date: 26.08.2000 (dd.mm.yyyy) Channel: #metaltrax Time: 22:00 (Finland) 21:00 (Sweden, CET) 20:00 (Great Britain) 15:00 (Eastern USA) Network: IRCNet Servers: eu.ircnet.org (European main server) us.ircnet.org (American main server) au.ircnet.org (Australian main server) To find your local IRCNet server, please refer to Metalscene Central IRC page. Official duration: 3 hours. Subjects: None Compo NOW 5 included (final) ------------------------------------------------------------------ R.E.D. - SPIRITUAL ANNIHILATION ------------------------------------------------------------------ New R.E.D. music disk project has started! SPIRITUAL ANNIHILATION All trackers are invited to make a song or two for it. Tracking deadline: 31.12.2000 (dd.mm.yyyy) Songs per tracker: 2 Songs accepted total: 24 Accepted formats: IT and XM Size limit: None Release date is unknown, but it will be in January 2001. Don't release your music disk entry before the disk is out. Questions? Check out R.E.D. page or throw me some mail to galahad@netppl.fi and I'll try to answer. [http://metalscene.tsx.org] ------------------------------------------------------------------ TRACKER DEVELOPMENT NEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------ * Impulse Tracker 3 (IT3): IT3 OUT IN DECEMBER ------------------------ JonkieXL, webmaster of Total Impulse Tracker, wrote the IT3 development team asking for more news about the program and its progress. This is the response that he received: "Current projections see IT3 shipping in december. There may be a public beta before that, there may not. It will of course be announced in all of the popular color suppliments when the time comes ;) "This is only a projection... it may be slightly earlier, it may be slightly later, but it should be around that time. Kindly do not send people with lead pipes around if we misscalculated ;) (Or any other weapons for that matter :) "We apologise for taking our sweet time with this... there are many reasons why IT3 hasn't shipped yet, too many to explain here. Some of these are to do with a complete redesign that has made the product 100% better.. and you want a good product, right? :). "Anyhow, now that these hurdles have been overcome, we are back to working at full speed, and you will finally see the completed tracker soon :)." We'll keep you posted with any more information, or an announcement of a downloadable beta version if and when the time comes. ----------- ORIGINAL AUTHOR LEAVES IT3 TEAM --------------------------------- The DSP Audio website announced that Jeffrey Lim is no longer a part of the IT3 development team. Their news section reports: "Followers of the It3 development project will have already noticed that Jeffrey Lim the it2 creater is no longer involved with DSPaudio, Inc. Due to financial restrictions on DSPaudio Jeffrey was unable to continue working for us. He found an extremely cool job, and all parties are comfortable with his decision. DSPaudio, Inc. only wants good things for it's team members. If DSPaudio isn't returning what the team members need, then they are urged to actively seek other jobs that fulfill their requirements. Currently Ladislav Lostak, Jaymz Thompson, Neil Anderson, Josh Kwan, Scott Hodgins, Tony Allen, Zdenek Eisenhammer, and Lukas Klesal are all actively working towards releasing It3." So, what appeared to be a step forward in the release if IT3 turns out to be just another peak in the interest and hype of the project. Note: This shouldn't affect on IT3 release date in any way. ------------------------------ * Fast Tracker 3 (FT3): --------------------------- djam from NoError reports: "I contacted the FT3 development team and the message i received is cool. Watch 'Ft3 has advanced a bit. The coder was very busy last month with his demo and intro for the ep8 and only some minor changes have been made. An inside beta version has been released. But the coder told me he didn't want to release a public beta version until it be almost finished, it means v0.9B. So, some versions will be released in Spain, between a little group of tracker which will help the coder to finish the program correctly.' "The tracker is said to be already functional and works too. They have tested it with the strangest modules with effects everywhere and it seems to work...More informations in a few weeks i think :)" ------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW WITH EINHERJAR ------------------------------------------------------------------ <_galahad_> So...what's up? Well anything works out fine just now... 4 songs coming up. <_galahad_> 4 songs?...are you working on a disk or what? Well I think I'll make disk, but I haven't thinked it much yet... <_galahad_> Lot of stuff anyway. A bit of history... how did you find tracked metal scene in the first place? Well I heard about it from Cadaver (yes, he's a frend of mine) Then I haven't got connection, but when I did get it, I joined to this great scene right away. <_galahad_> And you really just suddenly appeared here. First tune I heard from you was your CN4 winner tune. When exactly you started tracking? I think my first released tune was "Merten soturit"... but anyways CN4-tune was first succesfull tune. I started to track (wery badly) at 1994 or -95. <_galahad_> And right after that a fourth place in DTC which is not bad at all. Any future plans for tracking except those coming four tunes? Well I think I want to win CN5 :) My homepages are now bit frozen, but I'm working for new ones. Let's see when I put 'em online. I'm quite lazy working with html. ...Oh. And I working out one song now with Redash... <_galahad_> Heh...I guess we all are lazy with html.. So do you have any equipment of your own? Guitar or something? Ibanez Rg-series guitar, Boss metalzone-distortion, HH-microlead amp and Roland bolt-60 amp. <_galahad_> Using your own samples in your songs? Yes. Even though they suck. I'm planning to do new guitar-samplepacks, but that's long distance ahead... I rip only bass- & synthamples to my songs. <_galahad_> Yeah, would be quite expensive to buy every fucking instrument :) Yes. It would be still some sort of dream to me :) I like to play all kinds of instruments. <_galahad_> Who wouldn't? :) Talking about Cadaver, do you think that he is the "only voice" on the metal scene nowadays? Seems like every other tune has his vocals Well I like his voice, but maybe I'll start to sing more, since almost everyone uses Cadaver's-lyrics and -vocals... I don't want to bug him with my songs much anymore :) I think it would be good sign to scene if more singers would step out from closets... Every tracker can do some sort of vocals. <_galahad_> That's true and for example Ari surprised me positively with his vocals...even with clean ones. Yeah. It was REALLY positive suprise ! I liked his volas too. Good example to this "just start doing your own vocs"-thingie. Ah. "volas"....I meant vocals.... :) <_galahad_> What inspires you most? Well I'll get my inspirations from random places... Good music, instruments and alcohol to mention some. :) <_galahad_> Mention some examples of the good music :) Well I listen almost everything so it's a bit difficult to mention just a few.... hmm... Primus, Mithotyn, Frank Zappa, Burzum, Kuha, Cryptopsy, Isengard, Old man's child, Einherjer, Pantera, Slipknot, Vai, Satriani, Deicide, Immortal, etc :) mm... and Riivaaja of course :) <_galahad_> I bet everybody's surprised about Einherjer ;) :) (Well I did found my name before that band as everyone can remember maybe that msg.board. discussion) <_galahad_> Alright, mention some examples of the good alcohol. Well beer is my all-time favorite, byt I like Vodka too. <_galahad_> Can you tell us what "einherjar or einherjer" exactly means? (at least I'm quite bad with other scandinavian languages) The Einherjar are the heroes who have died with great bravery on the battle fields. These heroes are prepared in Valhalla for the oncoming battle of Ragnarok. In the morning they are waked by the crowing of the cock Gullinkambi ("golden comb"). During the day they train and fight, until they cut each other to pieces. At night they feast at Odin's side and their wounds are miraculously healed. On the day of Ragnarok, the bravest of the Einherjar will march with Odin to battle the frost giants, the enemies of the gods. <_galahad_> Wow...damnit.. your nickname has more interesting background story than mine. Yeah. It's quite interesting :) <_galahad_> You can say whatever you want before we end this interview. Well... haven't got much to say... Keep on drinking and tracking! Hails to everyone who wants 'em :) <_galahad_> heh...thanks for the interview dude Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reviews by MALAKHAI: Disks: ------- AEUK - Symptons Score: 3/10 ---------- 1. A.E.U.K. 2. Behind Light Thou Shall Rise (Deicide-cover) 3. Extreme Pilgrimage 4. Desecration (Of The Heavenly Graceful) (Incantation-cover) 5. Lust For Life (Ode To Daemon) 6. Night Of A Volcanic Lava I haven't ever liked AeuK's style so maybe I'm wrong person to judge this. Let's try anyway. Only song that I liked on disk is Incantation cover Desecration. Very nice growling and guitar riffs. Guitars seem to be out of rhythm in some parts but that doesn't bother much. Haven't heard the original but this one is cool. And rest of the disk then... ehm... original ones on the disk are typical AeuK. If you've liked AeuK's stuff before you probably like these too but to me they suck. They sound just so randomly and quickly made to me that I don't like 'em. And then there's Deicide cover which sorry to say but sounds horrible. Guitars are totally out of tune in main riff and vocals are damn strange. This hasn't got much to do with original which is quite good actually. Have to say that AeuK has developed his own style and this disk is faithful to it. I don't like the style but if you do this is worth downloading I guess. Score is low but it's just my opinion... ---------- URL: http://members.fortunecity.com/aeuk/music/symptons.zip ---------- Singles: -------- Azaghal - Invocation of the Continual One (Morbid Angel-cover) Score: 6/10 ---------- Morbid Angel cover with vocals by Gutrot. Over 8 minutes long so credits for that. Guitar sound is good and vocals are OK. They are downsampled a lot but it's understandable because of the length. About the song itself... style is death metal, not very brutal nor very melodic either. This is somewhat simplified version of original one which I have too. Guitar solos, 2nd guitar in some parts and some effects have been left out. Lack of these actually is what makes the song more boring than original. Otherwise this is technically good cover and I can't really find anything to complain. Nice work. ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/sssdisk/aza_inv.zip ---------- Dismal - Path of Misery Score: 6/10 ---------- This is melodic metal with loads of synths. If you've heard earlier Dismal's songs you know the picture. Nothing really groundbreaking stuff but still enjoyable. Especially synths and church bell sample (or whatever) are nicely used and nothing wrong with guitars either. Points are dropped because this is little repetitive and there are some parts that are out of tune. Vocals would improve this one too. ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/Aura_111/SoB/songs/dis-pom.zip ---------- ----------------------- Reviews by HYBRIDO: Singles: Dominator - AssAssIn Score: 5/10 ---------- Dominator... Humm, sound like an old trash metal tune to me, but this aint any trash. This is something that could have been a lot more than it is, if it just had vocals. Now itīs even hard to tell what sort of genre this belongs to. To me it is just melodic metal, and not melodic enough to satisfy my sick apetite. Nah, Assassin claims that this is his best song so far, but itīs NOT. The only real good about this is the magnificeant acoustic guitars in the beginning... I say the same that I said to Dismal. Get yourself a singer cause youīll need it if youīre going to do this kind of music. ---------- URL: http://neptune.spaceports.com/~assassin/home/dominator.zip ---------- Garden of fallen Souls - Dismal Score: 8/10 ---------- As some of you might know Dismal is nowadays at his military service, so I donīt think there will be any more releases from him in a while, and thatīs really a shame. He is, and has always been, one of this sceneīs greatest keyboard trackers. Thereīs nothing like listening to the way Dismal (Amok too) handles his strings and choirs. Ussualy his songs are very powerful and mighty in a way only a few can achieve. "Garden of Fallen Souls" is no exception. It has everything that is needed for getting that real "Dimmu Borgir sound", BUT that doesnīt make a whole song does it? This one fails because of itīs lack of imagination. The melodies and atmosphere is very good and dark but thereīs too few breaks and changes in it. It feels a bit like this song was ment to have vocals, but the singer never showed up. Thatīs what keeps this song from getting the real high scores. Dismal, get yourself a good singer or even sing by yourself and you will become one of the greatest metal trackers ever... ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/Aura_111/SoB/songs/dis-gofs.zip ---------- Khaotik - S. Von Berzerk Score: 6/10 ---------- S. Von Berzerk... taste that nick. For me he has always been kinda strange. I've never managed to understand what kind of music he really does, and neither if he's good or bad. This song doesn't help me out at all. Khaotik is a strange blackmetal song with some influences of Breakbeat and such shite. It doesn't take me long until I start to think of Satyricon while listening to this (of course I mean their new album). I donīt like Satyricon's new album, and neither do I like this. The vocs are too fucked up for my taste, it's not melodic and it sure as hell ain't tecnichally, aggressive or original enough to get any high score. I don't think S. Von Berzerk's idea of mixing the blackmetal with a la breakbeat was a bad idea, he just never went the whole way. Now it just lost all the good things in blackmetal... ---------- URL: http://www.traxinspace.com/Music/Songs/Download.asp?SongID=35876 ---------- ----------------------- Reviews by MURHAQ: Disks: ------- Elisabeth: A musical novel in two pieces - Asushunamir score 6/10 ---------- This disk contains two songs, but those 2 sound too much the same. Sample quality isn't so good, but melodies are ok, nothing so special really, after listening Asushunamir's Den Svenske Viking disk which is much better than this one. Clean vocals on 2nd chapter were good. ---------- URL: http://hem.netlink.se/~sbe6616/mods/elisabeth.zip ---------- Singles: --------- Tuhoutuu symbolit Jumalan - Urghagnar Score 1/10 ---------- I must say i got a horrible headache by listening to this. This is somekind of wannabe-slow-true-blackmetal song. First of all, guitar samples are recorded in _very_ low quality, which sounds really sucky, vocals are recorded with low quality too, and that really rips up ears. No catchy riffs, every riff was a pain to listen actually.. Really nothing good in this song. ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/urghagnar/download/scr_symb.zip ---------- Transilvanian Hunger - S. von Berzerk Score 6/10 ---------- Mmm, this is more for my taste, medium-fast blackmetal, sounds like Darkthrone. Some riffs are very cathcy. Vocals were cool and they had cool echo. Drums sounded actually very "real", maybe because of quite low sound quality (56kbs). I really enjoyed listening to this. A bit better sound quality would make this song much better. ---------- URL: http://www.traxinspace.com/Music/Songs/Download.asp?SongID=35714 ---------- Ari Manninen: Sea, Ship and Sculls Score 8/10 ---------- Yeah! :P This one sounds really funny, I really enjoyed listening to this! As Ari said, this really sounds like there's an old drunken viking singing :P Clean vocals were quite good actually. Some parts around 50s sound a bit like Riivaja to me. Guitars are good quality and well played, but there's still some small "humming" sometimes in guitars. Lead part is very cool and catchy in my opinion. Recommended for download, listen to this with few bottles of beer to get all the mood out of it! :) ---------- URL: http://phobos.spaceports.com/~manninen/ari_scul.zip ---------- ----------------------- Reviews by DRAGON: Disks: ------- Den Svenske Viking - Asushunamir Score: 7/10 ---------- Well, it's viking music alright. The sound is kind of muffled lo-fi samples, with weird clear vocals mixed with grunts. I like the fourth song, because it's different from any metal i previously heard, and the guitar solos are very interesting. The second song is groovy at times, kind of like some HARVESTER OF SORROW viking version, but with some faster parts. Third song is more good riffing and melodies, with the same overall discussable sound. Still enjoyable. My favorite is the nicely orchestrated opening track, even though it's so short. The narration even though i don't understand shit, is fitting awesomely with the nice music. The outro is well done, but it's the least en- joyable track in my opinion. I give a 7 for the fact that even though samples are not so great in songs 2,3 and 4, the riffs and melodies are good and fun, and also not more than 7 because of its shortness and the fact that the whole disk is shorter than an AssAssIn track :). ---------- URL: http://hem.netlink.se/~sbe6616/mods/asushunamir_dsv.zip ---------- HELLUVA RITUAL AT THE MUSTAT VUONOT EP!! - Lady In Black Score: 6/10 ---------- Daoloth was assigned to review this song, but since he didn't do his reviews this month, Galahad asked me to fill his duties. I commented about this on the EVENTS board, thinking it was an all girls EP, but the singer, BANE, is a guy. I thought, wow, a girl singing like that is cool, but when i found out i was erronated, i laughed. Now, this EP is great work orchestrated by LiB, supposed she was not sober at the time :). The arrangements are very good, except maybe the drums could have been a bit louder in the mix. The voices are really evil, and so are the lyrics, supposedly. LiB told us we were better off not knowing, or something like that. The reason for the 6 is that there's confusion between the orchestration of the music and the me- lody behind evil demonic and satanic lyricism and growls. But even though it's not my style, i enjoyed it. ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/puputohveli/helluva.zip ---------- Nightfall's Call - Paralyzis Score: 8.5/10 ---------- This is a short review, cause Hyb could not get the link to work from his end, so i did it last minute. Overall a solid, original, disk, with solid vocals by Soul Saver. Some of the arrangements lack, when you try to separate the instruments from the mix, with your mind and ears, but it doesn't bother me too much. The style however, is so not my favorite it hurts, but since i remain objec- tive, i based the score on originality and good vocals. ---------- URL: http://ajatollah.hes.iki.fi/murhaq/music/nightfalls_call.Zip ---------- Singles: --------- Hangover - AssAssIn Score: 7/10 ---------- This is kind of a nostalgia piece from AssAssIn, in tribute to his days when he was known as Hangover. It's also refreshing, in the sense that it's less mindboggling as his other releases. The riffing is between Metallica and Megadeth, with more tempo changes than DREAM THEATER's METROPOLIS. The sound is as always realistic and close to the Betrayer sound. I like the piece for it is well done, but I prefer his hard to handle releases. Still it's a good 7, not a bad 7. Worth downloading. ---------- URL: http://neptune.spaceports.com/~assassin/home/hangover.zip ---------- Addicted to own Feces - Morpheus Score: 9.5/10 ---------- Now, even though this is kind of industrial rather than anything else, I must stress that this is close to the masterpiece, appart from one bad cymcrash. The mysterious tempo and eerie lead guitar, as well as the kind of synthesized rhythm guitar and the curious breaks, it just FREAKED me out. The vibe is like Horror and Sci-fi, like an everything goes wrong kinda day, where people you thought you loved become cyborgs and gooey grasshoping aliens with monstruous teeth. Grrr... ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/morghlith/Feces.zip ---------- Sullen Parity - Frozeneyes Score: 6/10 ---------- Nothing new here, the classic disconcorded snare and ride, with the thumping bass drum, the mushy all together sound, with some hints of melodies somewhere in there, and gruntings, like someone stuck in the dishwasher. But there's good middle part with an acceptable solo, so that saves the song. Still, I'm not very sure about that song. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, 6, cause some people might like it more than me. ---------- URL: http://users.ev1.net/~willsjl/mods/fe-sulln.zip ---------- Discard Life - Urghagnar Score: 6/10 ---------- Another weird bugger of a song, it uses a sound similar to AssAssIn, but with the samples a bit too stretched in some places. The tempo is incongruous in most of the song, and annoying more often than not. Still, some who enjoy that in your face rawness might enjoy this. ---------- http://members.xoom.com/urghagnar/download/scr_life.zip ---------- Tears Of Despair - AssAssIn Score: 6/10 ---------- Another loooong song from AssAssIn and it takes about a minute and forty seconds to start, it's veeery slow, weird, almost like a sound- track of some sort. Of course, we have here a very skilled tracker, so the song is very well tracked and sounds realistic, in a Betrayer kind of way of course. But even though AssAssIn made an effort to be original, this gets kinda boring fast. Vocals might enhance it, but i don't think it would make much difference. As a background music for a game, it'd be ok for a level or two, but after that, the gamer would fall asleep and lose the game. Anyway, the tracking saves it. ---------- URL: http://neptune.spaceports.com/~assassin/home/tears.zip ---------- Tears Of Desperation - Dismal Score: 7.5/10 ---------- Very cool, eerie, horror movie type intro, with cool joining guitars, even though it's just a bit stretched guitar sound. The arrangements are good despite this minor weakness. Again, vocals would help the song, some kind of nightmarish skeleton, like in Tales From The Crypt, narrating some kool spooky story would fit in nicely. Well done though. ---------- URL: http://members.xoom.com/Aura_111/SoB/songs/dis-tod.zip ---------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ SID SOUNDCARD FOR PC ------------------------------------------------------------------ Since metalchiptune music disks and stuff are now so popular, I guess this might interest you. Hard Software has released its HARDSID, a soundcard for the PC that uses the Sound Interface Device (SID) chip like the Commodore 64. This is an improvement over the SID emulation software that is currently available through various programs and plugins. 'SID' is both the name of the chip from the C64, and the name of the files that it plays. 'SIDs' are sound files from the C64, in the same respect that MOD files are sound files from other computers. The HardSID soundcard boasts the following features: - SID 6581 and 8580 support configurable with a single jumper - Removable SID and removable filter capacitors for customization - Dramatically reduced noise - the SID sounds cleaner than ever! - Internal Audio-Out to your existing soundcard (CD-audio cable) - External Audio-Out by RCA - Audio-In on the card - Device jumpers: Up to 4 HardSIDs in the same PC - Full SID control including register-reading - Supported by the biggest products! - Easy programming for software developers through the HardSID.DLL More info on web sites! http://www.hardsid.com (Card ordering and more detailed info). http://hvsc.c64.org (Info about SIDs). ------------------------------------------------------------------ ARTICLES ------------------------------------------------------------------ COURTNEY LOVE DOES THE MATH - PART TWO --------------------------------------- Now artists have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore, because the digital economy is creating new ways to distribute and market music. And the free ones amongst us aren't going to. That means the slave class, which I represent, has to find ways to get out of our deals. This didn't really matter before, and that's why we all stayed. I want my seven-year contract law California labor code case to mean something to other artists. (Universal Records sues me because I leave because my employment is up, but they say a recording contract is not a personal contract; because the recording industry -- who, we have established, are excellent lobbyists, getting, as they did, a clerk to disallow Don Henley or Tom Petty the right to give their copyrights to their families -- in California, in 1987, lobbied to pass an amendment that nullified recording contracts as personal contracts, sort of. Maybe. Kind of. A little bit. And again, in the dead of night, succeeded.) That's why I'm willing to do it with a sword in my teeth. I expect I'll be ignored or ostracized following this lawsuit. I expect that the treatment you're seeing Lars Ulrich get now will quadruple for me. Cool. At least I'll serve a purpose. I'm an artist and a good artist, I think, but I'm not that artist that has to play all the time, and thus has to get fucked. Maybe my laziness and self-destructive streak will finally pay off and serve am community desperately in need of it. They can't torture me like they could Lucinda Williams. You funny dot-communists. Get your shit together, you annoying sucka VCs I want to work with people who believe in music and art and passion. And I'm just the tip of the iceberg. I'm leaving the major label system and there are hundreds of artists who are going to follow me. There's an unbelievable opportunity for new companies that dare to get it right. How can anyone defend the current system when it fails to deliver music to so many potential fans? That only expects of itself a "5 percent success rate" a year? The status quo gives us a boring culture. In a society of over 300 million people, only 30 new artists a year sell a million records. By any measure, that's a huge failure. Maybe each fan will spend less money, but maybe each artist will have a better chance of making a living. Maybe our culture will get more interesting than the one currently owned by Time Warner. I'm not crazy. Ask yourself, are any of you somehow connected to Time Warner media? I think there are a lot of yeses to that and I'd have to say that in that case president McKinley truly failed to bust any trusts. Maybe we can remedy that now. Artists will make that compromise if it means we can connect with hundreds of millions of fans instead of the hundreds of thousands that we have now. Especially if we lose all the crap that goes with success under the current system. I'm willing, right now, to leave half of these trappings -- fuck it, all these trappings -- at the door to have a pure artist experience. They cosset us with trappings to shut us up. That way when we say "sharecropper!" you can point to my free suit and say "Shut up pop star." Here, take my Prada pants. Fuck it. Let us do our real jobs. And those of us addicted to celebrity because we have nothing else to give will fade away. And those of us addicted to celebrity because it was there will find a better, purer way to live. Since I've basically been giving my music away for free under the old system, I'm not afraid of wireless, MP3 files or any of the other threats to my copyrights. Anything that makes my music more available to more people is great. MP3 files sound cruddy, but a well-made album sounds great. And I don't care what anyone says about digital recordings. At this point they are good for dance music, but try listening to a warm guitar tone on them. They suck for what I do. Record companies are terrified of anything that challenges their control of distribution. This is the business that insisted that CDs be sold in incredibly wasteful 6-by-12 inch long boxes just because no one thought you could change the bins in a record store. Let's not call the major labels "labels." Let's call them by their real names: They are the distributors. They're the only distributors and they exist because of scarcity. Artists pay 95 percent of whatever we make to gatekeepers because we used to need gatekeepers to get our music heard. Because they have a system, and when they decide to spend enough money -- all of it recoupable, all of it owed by me -- they can occasionally shove things through this system, depending on a lot of arbitrary factors. The corporate filtering system, which is the system that brought you (in my humble opinion) a piece of crap like "Mambo No. 5" and didn't let you hear the brilliant Cat Power record or the amazing new Sleater Kinney record, obviously doesn't have good taste anyway. But we've never paid major label/distributors for their good taste. They've never been like Yahoo and provided a filter service. There were a lot of factors that made a distributor decide to push a recording through the system: How powerful is management? Who owes whom a favor? What independent promoter's cousin is the drummer? What part of the fiscal year is the company putting out the record? Is the royalty rate for the artist so obscenely bad that it's almost 100 percent profit instead of just 95 percent so that if the record sells, it's literally a steal? How much bin space is left over this year? Was the record already a hit in Europe so that there's corporate pressure to make it work? Will the band screw up its live career to play free shows for radio stations? Does the artist's song sound enough like someone else that radio stations will play it because it fits the sound of the month? Did the artist get the song on a film soundtrack so that the movie studio will pay for the video? These factors affect the decisions that go into the system. Not public taste. All these things are becoming eradicated now. They are gone or on their way out. We don't need the gatekeepers any more. We just don't need them. And if they aren't going to do for me what I can do for myself with my 19-year-old Webmistress on my own Web site, then they need to get the hell out of my way. [I will] allow millions of people to get my music for nothing if they want and hopefully they'll be kind enough to leave a tip if they like it. I still need the old stuff. I still need a producer in the creation of a recording, I still need to get on the radio (which costs a lot of money), I still need bin space for hardware CDs, I still need to provide an opportunity for people without computers to buy the hardware that I make. I still need a lot of this stuff, but I can get these things from a joint venture with a company that serves as a conduit and knows its place. Serving the artist and serving the public: That's its place. A new company that gives artists true equity in their work can take over the world, kick ass and make a lot of money. We're inspired by how people get paid in the new economy. Many visual artists and software and hardware designers have real ownership of their work. I have a 14-year-old niece. She used to want to be a rock star. Before that she wanted to be an actress. As of six months ago, what do you think she wants to be when she grows up? What's the glamorous, emancipating career of choice? Of course, she wants to be a Web designer. It's such a glamorous business! When you people do business with artists, you have to take a different view of things. We want to be treated with the respect that now goes to Web designers. We're not Dockers-wearing Intel workers from Portland who know how to "manage our stress." We don't understand or want to understand corporate culture. I feel this obscene gold rush greedgreedgreed vibe that bothers me a lot when I talk to dot-com people about all this. You guys can't hustle artists that well. At least slick A&R guys know the buzzwords. Don't try to compete with them. I just laugh at you when you do! Maybe you could a year ago when anything dot-com sounded smarter than the rest of us, but the scam has been uncovered. The celebrity-for-sale business is about to crash, I hope, and the idea of a sucker VC gifting some company with four floors just because they can "do" "chats" with "Christina" once or twice is ridiculous. I did a chat today, twice. Big damn deal. 200 bucks for the software and some elbow grease and a good back-end coder. Wow. That's not worth 150 million bucks. ... I mean, yeah, sure it is if you'd like to give it to me. Tipping/music as service I know my place. I'm a waiter. I'm in the service industry. I live on tips. Occasionally, I'm going to get stiffed, but that's OK. If I work hard and I'm doing good work, I believe that the people who enjoy it are going to want to come directly to me and get my music because it sounds better, since it's mastered and packaged by me personally. I'm providing an honest, real experience. Period. When people buy the bootleg T-shirt in the concert parking lot and not the more expensive T-shirt inside the venue, it isn't to save money. The T-shirt in the parking lot is cheap and badly made, but it's easier to buy. The bootleggers have a better distribution system. There's no waiting in line and it only takes two minutes to buy one. I know that if I can provide my own T-shirt that I designed, that I made, and provide it as quickly or quicker than the bootleggers, people who've enjoyed the experience I've provided will be happy to shell out a little more money to cover my costs. Especially if they understand this context, and aren't being shoveled a load of shit about "uppity" artists. It's exactly the same with recorded music. The real thing to fear from Napster is its simple and excellent distribution system. No one really prefers a cruddy-sounding Napster MP3 file to the real thing. But it's really easy to get an MP3 file; and in the middle of Kansas you may never see my record because major distribution is really bad if your record's not in the charts this week, and even then it takes a couple of weeks to restock the one copy they usually keep on hand. I also know how many times I have heard a song on the radio that I loved only to buy the record and have the album be a piece of crap. If you're afraid of your own filler then I bet you're afraid of Napster. I'm afraid of Napster because I think the major label cartel will get to them before I do. I've made three records. I like them all. I haven't made filler and they're all committed pieces of work. I'm not scared of you previewing my record. If you like it enough to have it be a part of your life, I know you'll come to me to get it, as long as I show you how to get to me, and as long as you know that it's out. Most people don't go into restaurants and stiff waiters, but record labels represent the restaurant that forces the waiters to live on, and sometimes pool, their tips. And they even fight for a bit of their tips. Music is a service to its consumers, not a product. I live on tips. Giving music away for free is what artists have been doing naturally all their lives. New models Record companies stand between artists and their fans. We signed terrible deals with them because they controlled our access to the public. But in a world of total connectivity, record companies lose that control. With unlimited bin space and intelligent search engines, fans will have no trouble finding the music they know they want. They have to know they want it, and that needs to be a marketing business that takes a fee. If a record company has a reason to exist, it has to bring an artist's music to more fans and it has to deliver more and better music to the audience. You bring me a bigger audience or a better relationship with my audience or get the fuck out of my way. Next time I release a record, I'll be able to go directly to my fans and let them hear it before anyone else. We'll still have to use radio and traditional CD distribution. Record stores aren't going away any time soon and radio is still the most important part of record promotion. Major labels are freaking out because they have no control in this new world. Artists can sell CDs directly to fans. We can make direct deals with thousands of other Web sites and promote our music to millions of people that old record companies never touch. We're about to have lots of new ways to sell our music: downloads, hardware bundles, memory sticks, live Webcasts, and lots of other things that aren't even invented yet. Content providers But there's something you guys have to figure out. Here's my open letter to Steve Case: Avatars don't talk back!!! But what are you going to do with real live artists? Artists aren't like you. We go through a creative process that's demented and crazy. There's a lot of soul-searching and turning ourselves inside-out and all kinds of gross stuff that ends up on "Behind the Music." A lot of people who haven't been around artists very much get really weird when they sit down to lunch with us. So I want to give you some advice: Learn to speak our language. Talk about songs and melody and hooks and art and beauty and soul. Not sleazy record-guy crap, where you're in a cashmere sweater murmuring that the perfect deal really is perfect, Courtney. Yuck. Honestly hire honestly committed people. We're in a "new economy," right? You can afford to do that. But don't talk to me about "content." I get really freaked out when I meet someone and they start telling me that I should record 34 songs in the next six months so that we have enough content for my site. Defining artistic expression as content is anathema to me. What the hell is content? Nobody buys content. Real people pay money for music because it means something to them. A great song is not just something to take up space on a Web site next to stock market quotes and baseball scores. DEN tried to build a site with artist-free content and I'm not sorry to see it fail. The DEN shows look like art if you're not paying attention, but they forgot to hire anyone to be creative. So they ended up with a lot of content nobody wants to see because they thought they could avoid dealing with defiant and moody personalities. Because they were arrogant. And because they were conformists. Artists have to deal with business people and business people have to deal with artists. We hate each other. Let's create companies of mediators. Every single artist who makes records believes and hopes that they give you something that will transform your life. If you're really just interested in data mining or selling banner ads, stick with those "artists" willing to call themselves content providers. I don't know if an artist can last by meeting the current public taste, the taste from the last quarterly report. I don't think you can last by following demographics and carefully meeting expectations. I don't know many lasting works of art that are condescending or deliberately stupid or were created as content. Don't tell me I'm a brand. I'm famous and people recognize me, but I can't look in the mirror and see my brand identity. Keep talking about brands and you know what you'll get? Bad clothes. Bad hair. Bad books. Bad movies. And bad records. And bankrupt businesses. Rides that were fun for a year with no employee loyalty but everyone got rich fucking you. Who wants that? The answer is purity. We can afford it. Let's go find it again while we can. I also feel filthy trying to call my music a product. It's not a thing that I test market like toothpaste or a new car. Music is personal and mysterious. Being a "content provider" is prostitution work that devalues our art and doesn't satisfy our spirits. Artistic expression has to be provocative. The problem with artists and the Internet: Once their art is reduced to content, they may never have the opportunity to retrieve their souls. When you form your business for creative people, with creative people, come at us with some thought. Everybody's process is different. And remember that it's art. We're not craftspeople. I don't know what a good sponsorship would be for me or for other artists I respect. People bring up sponsorships a lot as a way for artists to get our music paid for upfront and for us to earn a fee. I've dealt with large corporations for long enough to know that any alliance where I'm an owned service is going to be doomed. When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of people outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market because they were clueless about music. It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the door? On top of all this, I felt embarrassed to be an advertising agent for a product that I'd never let my daughter use. Plus they were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated me like I was an ungrateful little bitch who should be groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda. I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This way I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with me again. If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut, wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people, no women allowed sodapop images. Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing, liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, no-women-allowed booze images. So as a defiant moody artist worth my salt, I've got to think of something else. Tampax, maybe. Money As a user, I love Napster. It carries some risk. I hear idealistic business people talk about how people that are musicians would be musicians no matter what and that we're already doing it for free, so what about copyright? Please. It's incredibly easy not to be a musician. It's always a struggle and a dangerous career choice. We are motivated by passion and by money. That's not a dirty little secret. It's a fact. Take away the incentive for major or minor financial reward and you dilute the pool of musicians. I am not saying that only pure artists will survive. Like a few of the more utopian people who discuss this, I don't want just pure artists to survive. Where would we all be without the trash? We need the trash to cover up our national depression. The utopians also say that because in their minds "pure" artists are all Ani DiFranco and don't demand a lot of money. Why are the utopians all entertainment lawyers and major label workers anyway? demand a lot of money if I do a big huge worthwhile job and millions of people like it, don't kid yourself. In economic terms, you've got an industry that's loathsome and outmoded, but when it works it creates some incentive and some efficiency even though absolutely no one gets paid. We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the true value of goods and services delivered. We create a lack of production. Less good music is recorded if we remove the incentive to create it. Music is intellectual property with full cash and opportunity costs required to create, polish and record a finished product. If I invest money and time into my business, I should be reasonably protected from the theft of my goods and services. When the judgment came against MP3.com, the RIAA sought damages of $150,000 for each major-label-"owned" musical track in MP3's database. Multiply by 80,000 CDs, and MP3.com could owe the gatekeepers $120 billion. But what about the Plimsouls? Why can't MP3.com pay each artist a fixed amount based on the number of their downloads? Why on earth should MP3.com pay $120 billion to four distribution companies, who in most cases won't have to pay a nickel to the artists whose copyrights they've stolen through their system of organized theft? It's a ridiculous judgment. I believe if evidence had been entered that ultimately it's just shuffling big cash around two or three corporations, I can only pray that the judge in the MP3.com case would have seen the RIAA's case for the joke that it was. I'd rather work out a deal with MP3.com myself, and force them to be artist-friendly, instead of being laughed at and having my money hidden by a major label as they sell my records out the back door, behind everyone's back. How dare they behave in such a horrified manner in regards to copyright law when their entire industry is based on piracy? When Mister Label Head Guy, whom my lawyer yelled at me not to name, got caught last year selling millions of "cleans" out the back door. "Cleans" being the records that aren't for marketing but are to be sold. Who the fuck is this guy? He wants to save a little cash so he fucks the artist and goes home? Do they fire him? Does Chuck Phillips of the LA Times say anything? No way! This guy's a source! He throws awesome dinner parties! Why fuck with the status quo? Let's pick on Lars Ulrich instead because he brought up an interesting point! Conclusion I'm looking for people to help connect me to more fans, because I believe fans will leave a tip based on the enjoyment and service I provide. I'm not scared of them getting a preview. It really is going to be a global village where a billion people have access to one artist and a billion people can leave a tip if they want to. It's a radical democratization. Every artist has access to every fan and every fan has access to every artist, and the people who direct fans to those artists. People that give advice and technical value are the people we need. People crowding the distribution pipe and trying to ignore fans and artists have no value. This is a perfect system. If you're going to start a company that deals with musicians, please do it because you like music. Offer some control and equity to the artists and try to give us some creative guidance. If music and art and passion are important to you, there are hundreds of artists who are ready to rewrite the rules. In the last few years, business pulled our culture away from the idea that music is important and emotional and sacred. But new technology has brought a real opportunity for change; we can break down the old system and give musicians real freedom and choice. A great writer named Neal Stephenson said that America does four things better than any other country in the world: rock music, movies, software and high-speed pizza delivery. All of these are sacred American art forms. Let's return to our purity and our idealism while we have this shot. Warren Beatty once said: "The greatest gift God gives us is to enjoy the sound of our own voice. And the second greatest gift is to get somebody to listen to it." And for that, I humbly thank you. ----------------------------------- NETSCAPE 6 PRE-RELEASE 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------ I decided to download new Netscape since I have always used it and found it more comfortable and most of all more stable than Explorer. This of course varies with different hardware, but here we go. My thought after one day of continous usage. It's still a pre-release. We will get back to it when final version is released. First of all, I was most disappointed with the new installing system which happens online. You just have to download N6 setup file which is about 400k. If you think that it's very small and nice size I must agree, but what happens when you launch it. You must re-connect to internet in case you disconnected after downloading the small setup file. I'm not sure if you can download all necessary files separatedly, but this is how I did it and I don't like it. So the setup program re-opens the connection and begins the installation which as I already mentioned, happens online. You receive 18 files with sizes varying from 500k to 6000k. No need to say that this will take a while with slower connections. Fortunately you are able to stop the transfer and continue later. This partly saves the system. It won't require GetRight or any similar programs to continue download later with N6 setup. I finally managed to download all 18 files from Netscape server and there while downloading you fill in all necessary information. When done, you get an free registration form on the screen. I highly recommend that you fill it up to avoid later annoying messages. Now I was at the point of most exciting moment, launching Netscape 6.0. New loading image is a bit different from previous versions. The old rudder is gone and replaced by binoculars image. I watch the new loading image... two minutes later I'm still watching the same image and as I listen to my harddisk's singing, I can't help a little bit of doubt sneaking into my mind. Finally the loading is done and I'm watching rather weird looking window in front of me. Oh my god, it's full of netcenter shit! However I recover from the shock quite fast when I find out that I can hide the side panel with netcenter stuff. After doing this, N6 looks pretty much the same as old versions, but not anywhere near to them. This funny deja-vu feeling comes from several tiny modifications they've made compared to the old browser. Nothing big really. So what's good and what's bad? Bad bugs. N6 didn't crash on my computer, but it had so bad bugs that can't be forgiven no matter how pre-release this is. Sometimes when jumping between IRC client and N6 I got two navigation bars in N6, which covered almost half of the actual browsing window. N6 seems to ignore some not-so-important-html-functions, like some
tags. This is something that shouldn't be tolerated even in pre-release. Netscape 6 beats every previous browser by being ten times slower than them in page loading and launching the program itself. As I tried to download files I was positively surprised. No matter where I downloaded I got it with maximum speed of my modem. I always thought that browser should not affect to the transfer speed. Maybe I just had a good day, who knows. FTP support is better than ever. While entering an FTP site you get a nice windows file manager looking page. This is very good improvement to oh so boring FTP browsing. N6 contains Net2Phone application, which allows you to send voice mail. N6 contains once again, like all previous versions, more integrated plug-in's which saves the trouble of downloading them all around the net. So what we have here? I wouldn't say that N6 is a lousy program, even with all the bugs and slowness. After all we have to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version and propably sent out for bug hunting. I truly hope that the final version is faster than this and that all annoying little bugs are fixed. At least this version didn't crash during my 16 hours test drive. I recommend that you'll wait for the final version and leave this alone, unless you have very fast computer with at least 128 megs of RAM. You should also have good nerves to face all minor bugs it brings with it. Red Rain will return to N6 when it's finished. If you want to try it anyway, go ahead. Direct addresses can be found below. Netscape 6.0 pre-release 2 download: Windows: ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6_PR2/windows/ win32/N6Setup.exe Unix: ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6_PR2/unix/ linux22/netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-installer-tar-gz -------------------------------------------------------------------------- GAME REVIEW - DIABLO 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Intro: For those that actually don't know for some reason, Diablo 2 has been released. Since I'm somewhat of a gamer I thought I'd start doing some in depth reviews starting with Diablo 2. I won't always review new games since there are a lot of older games that could hold up today. Enough of the intro.. on with the review! I've been playing since it was released and have not been disappointed one bit. While it's true the graphics are "yesterdays" technology, the gameplay is still there. It keeps you coming back for more wanting to find the next rare or unique item or advance your character just that little bit more. The game is basically 3 times bigger than Diablo was. D2 has 5 classes to choose from; Barbarian, Sorceress, Amazon, Paladin, and Necromancer. I have been playing a Necromancer and a Barbarian but have yet to jump on Bnet to play a realm character. I will describe the game through the characters I have played. *Graphics: as I mentioned above.. the graphics aren't today's fancy 3d stuff but they are extremely well done. If you have a 3d card the game does have some nice effects using direct3D. Some of the effects seen when casting spells are amazing. I personally like the isometric type view. The only beef I have is that they could have upped the resolution to 800x600 as I'm sure most people can run 800x600 just fine - then again that would mean more processing needed which woulda made it unplayable on slower machines. Running it on a P3 - 650mhz, 128mb ram with a TNT card shows no problems at all. I've seen reports of people having trouble with Nvidia based cards due to old drivers which is an easy fix. *Cinematics: as usual Blizzard has thrown in some excellent cinematics. Blizzard always has amazing movies and D2 does not disappoint. The price is worth it just for the movies - at least for those of us who can appreciate how difficult it is to achieve 3d animation like this. *Sound: the music gets kinda dull but is well done. The music fits the game is what I'm trying to say. Some of the sound effects are good and some sound like leftovers from Diablo. Basically there was nothing sound wise that made me drool - hehe. *Gameplay: incredible. That about sums it up. You no longer have to walk through the game at a snails pace. D2 has a nifty run toggle which I leave on. It's basically the same hack-n-slash style of Diablo but that's where the similarities (sp?) stop. Skills from Diablo have been replaced by a skill tree which enables many variations on the same character. For example you could play a necro as a summoner summoning skeletons, golems, and monsters or you could play a necro as a bone/poison spell caster firing such things as bone spears or teeth. There is also a curse tree which I haven't fully explored. Curses such as iron maiden which causes enemies to take damage when they hit you can be used. Each character class has their specialties. Each time you gain a level, you earn 5 stat points and 1 skill point to distribute. Skill points are also gained after completing certain quests. Each skill has a max of 20 but can go higher with the use of items. Rising through the ranks takes longer the higher you get (as it should). Characters (Necromancer & Barbarian): Necro: My first necro was played as a summoner. This works for the lower levels but your skeletons can quickly be destroyed with a single blow unless you have your skeleton mastery filled. My second necro is using the poison tab exclusively (for now) with teeth at 19 and bone spear at 8 and other points used just for pre-requisits. Teeth work very well until you get toward the end of act 3. I don't want to go too deep into strategy for a review so lemme stop there and just say that the necromancer can be considered the evil type character. Barbarian: This is one of the easier characters to play at lower levels IMO. Once you start playing nightmare mode it's hard - especially for a barbarian under level 30. The barbarian is the brute relying on melee combat. He can dish out a severe beating with the right weapon/skill combo. The barbarian's skill tree has a panel devoted to passive skills meaning they're in use all the time. These will increase damage dealt and decrease damage taken. I would consider barbarians to be a neutral class. Others: can't say much about these. Haven't played any of the other 3 classes yet. FINAL WORDS: Those that have Diablo and liked it must run out and grab D2. If you don't like isometric views then stay away. If you like action/rpg then take a close look. After having said this I would tell any gamer who asks that it is a must have. And for those that don't know... Diablo is spanish for Devil or Satan. ;) For more information check out the following: http://www.diabloii.net/ <- great news and info site http://www.blizzard.com/ <- creators of Diablo 2 -review by gorjr ------------------------------------------------------------------ Red Rain 05/2000 will be out 18.09.2000 (dd.mm.yyyy) Hopefully including Modulica review and interview ------------------------------------------------------------------