Monday, September 20, 2010

Thrash is NOT Dead

One of my friends recently introduced me to a relatively new band, Bonded by Blood, and my ears nearly exploded! It has been a very long time since a new thrash metal band has come around, and I have never heard such a PURE thrash band! They have the cutting guitar riffs of Exodus, the attitude of Anthrax, and the raw speed of Slayer. I'm really excited to learn more about these guys, and hopefully see them live, it looks like they are touring nonstop until March!

Crossing Guards? REALLY?

Today, I had my first encounter with crossing guards on Purdue's campus. Five students were hit by a car the first four days of class this semester, and the university responded by training and hiring crossing guards. When using the "services" of the crossing guard today at 1st & Russel, instead of feeling safe, I felt ashamed. The university responded to five students' inability to cross the street into making anyone that crosses a street with a crossing guard feel totally alienated and incapable of doing something as mindless as crossing the street.

This is going to sound horrible, but, really, isn't it just natural selection if someone can't take their nose out of their phone for ten seconds to safely cross the street and gets hit? We're supposed to be one of the most prestigious schools in the nation. Purdue is considered an Ivy League school by many (and its reputation grows the further away you get), yet we can't assume that the students that were smart enough to get into this school are intelligent enough to cross a street?

I'm not discounting the fact that some of the intersections on campus are very dangerous, because they are. However, I feel it would have been a better investment on the part of the university to redesign these intersections with the help of West Lafayette, among many other options than the empty and non-permanent expenditures on crossing guards.

Friday, September 17, 2010

The Real World is Calling!

This week saw Industrial Roundtable come to campus here at Purdue. IR is a two-day career fair that sees nearly 300 companies, 11,000 company representatives, and 10,000 students. I'm graduating in May, so I had to go find a job!

This was the first year that IR actually went well for me. The fact that I am a graduating senior meant that companies had more interest in me, it seemed. Aerospace has also been real down the last few years, and it is finally picking back up, and most companies had the general consensus that they'd be able to hire more people this year than in years past.

I don't want to reveal any information specifically, but I feel confident I should be able to find a job by the time I graduate! I'm excited to see what the "real world" has in store for me!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Laying the Foundation

I know I have had a lot of IndyCar related posts lately, but lots of news has been spewing from the world of IndyCar.

Randy Bernard, IndyCar CEO, spent the first week and a half of September in Europe, talking to potential engine manufacturers and F1 teams trying to garner interest in the series, inviting any and all manufacturers to supply engines and/or aero kits for the new spec coming in 2012, as well as introducing himself. From the sounds of things, people were very receptive and welcoming of him and his vision for the new IndyCar. Hopefully good things come from this, and we will again have several engine suppliers and several aero kit providers! Brief article about his trip can be found here.

Also, Tony Cotman, the man who is in charge for writing the technical details for the 2012 car, has also been working very hard. He started a blog on Racer which will encapsulate his work and give details as they are announced. His first blog states that they need to get the size of the engine compartment specified in the next 30-45 days, that way, potential engine suppliers will have plenty of time for development. Cotman is hopeful they can begin on-track testing in September 2011, which means Cotman will have his work cut out for him.

Another thing I found interesting about his first post is that he has his mind on driver comfort. The current cars are fine for the short drivers such as Danica Patrick (5'2") and E.J. Viso (5'5"), but the tall drivers like Justin Wilson (6'3") and Graham Rahal (6'2") really have to fold themselves up and pack themselves into the current cars. Justin often reports bruised elbows and knees from being packed into the current car and being subjected to 3+ G's for a substantial period of time. Cotman notes that next month, they will fly drivers out to Italy (Dallara, the company manufacturing the standard IndyCar safety cell, is based in Italy) to ensure that all drivers will be able to fit into the new car. That's a true engineering mindset, thinking about more than the obvious! Cotman's first post can be found here.

Just two months ago, the 2012 IndyCar was nothing more than a few computer models. I am very excited to see the project actually gaining momentum with some actual facts, figures, and photos arriving in the coming months!

Halo Over Our Demise

As 9/11 approached this year, there seemed to be more prick-waving than usual between Muslims and Christians. This happens every year around 9/11, but everything seemed greatly exacerbated this year. On Sunday night, I had my iTunes on shuffle, and the song Halo by Machine Head came on. The chorus of this song is as follows:


Halo over our demise
Following a god so blind
Sallow in their sickening
Swallow not, the shit they feed


Basically, the message here is that we're driving ourselves into oblivion with a halo above (Halo over our demise). Religious leaders do nothing but entice war by spreading their propaganda, saying their religion is the only true religion, and that all other religions should be destroyed, because that is what the book of their faith says (Following a god so blind). Of course, many other people blindly follow these messages relentlessly, so the hate further spreads (Sallow in their sickening). Generally speaking, the world would probably be a better place if we learned to accept other people's ideals and treat each other with respect, instead of immediately dismissing them based on their religion (Swallow not, the shit they feed).


This song is one of the many great examples where some of the stereotypical metal themes (murder, rape, etc) are thrown aside to convey a great message. It also goes to show that not all metal musicians are stoned alcoholics with guitars!


The song and music video can be found here: Machine Head - Halo

IndyCar Rebranded

In the same announcement that saw the 2011 IndyCar schedule revealed, another change was revealed.

In 1994, Tony George split from CART, forming the Indy Racing League. Before the start of the 2008 season, the remnants of both series merged back together under the IRL banner. During "The Split" as it's affectionately been named, IndyCar racing fell from a state of being nearly the most popular form of motorsport in the world, second only to Formula 1 on a global scale, and actually attracting Formula 1 drivers to it, to confused fans not knowing which side to follow, and generally following NASCAR instead.

The terms Indy Racing League and IRL has beleaguered many fans who stayed on the CART (which eventually became Champ Car) side, and Randy Bernard, IndyCar CEO, has acknowledged this. Starting with the 2011 season, the sanctioning body of the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Firestone Indy Lights will be known as IndyCar. Fans world over know the style of racing as IndyCar, and hopefully, this will bring many of them back.

Also, based on the press conference, I have to infer that more of the sport's history will be included. The IRL always treated their races as the only IndyCar races ever, and doesn't account for previous decades of history. For instance, Scott Dixon is listed as the winningest IndyCar driver with 23 wins, when the actual record belongs to Mario Andretti with 52. I can only hope this inference is correct, because I cringe during race broadcasts when it is claimed that Scott Dixon has won the most IndyCar races and that Sam Hornish Jr. has led the most laps in IndyCar competition. There's a good 80 years of history they've been neglecting.

Bernard hasn't been in charge for 12 months yet, and he's already making fantastic changes. He is the former CEO of Professional Bull Riding, and brought it from the little mom & pop run event to the media conglomerate it is now. Hopefully he continues to listen to fans and make the proper decisions in growing IndyCar back to its original status and hopefully toppling NASCAR. (Side note - did you know we are the only nation that takes stock car racing seriously? Because we are. It's a joke everywhere else. It's a sign of a BAD DRIVER to race stock cars.)

2011 IndyCar Schedule Revealed

On Friday, the schedule for the 2011 IndyCar season was announced. Before I give my opinion, the schedule is as follows:

MARCH 27 – St. Pete (street circuit)
APRIL 10 – Birmingham, Ala. (road course)
APRIL 17 – Long Beach (street)
MAY 1 – Brazil (street)
MAY 29 – Indianapolis 500
JUNE 12 – Texas doubleheader (oval)
JUNE 19 – Milwaukee (oval)
JUNE 26 – Iowa (oval) 
JULY 10 – Toronto (street)
JULY 24 – Edmonton (road course)
AUG. 7 – Mid-Ohio (road course)
AUG. 14 – Loudon (oval)
AUG. 28 – Sonoma (road course)
SEPT. 4 – Baltimore (street)
SEPT. 18 – Motegi, Japan (oval)
OCT. 2 – Kentucky (oval)
TBA - TBA, TBA


What do I like about this schedule? First off, the season starts on US soil. This year, the first race was in Brazil, and it seemed like a hassle to get all the equipment down there for the first race and back. I also like that the race in Brazil is a couple months later than it was, hopefully the weather proves to be more cooperative (there was damn near a tsunami on race day this year). I also do like that the race following Brazil is Indy with a few weeks off before Brazil, as teams can have the chance to get their car for Indy done in that time as well, and shouldn't be too rushed to get back to the shop, prepare their car, and get to Indy.


I am also very excited about the return to the Milwaukee Mile, a track bestowed with more history than Indy. Races there are always a test of skill and endurance with really long corners with little banking, and is a place where a driver who doesn't have a high quality ride can see themselves high in the standings. I have high hopes for the street race in Baltimore as well. The city has been trying to make this happen for a couple years, and seem to be real excited about it finally happening, so, hopefully, the event will be a success!


Gone next year are all tracks run by International Speedway Corp, which is run by the France family, which owns NASCAR. They never care about anything but NASCAR on their tracks, and will only run other series if it's not an inconvenience to NASCAR. The series has worked very closely with Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. to get races on their tracks. The good news is that this sees the return of New Hampshire Speedway, a one-mile oval, and the TBA event is more than likely Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The bad news is that this gets rid of Watkins Glen, Chicagoland, and Homestead-Miami. The Glen is one of the nation's best natural terrain road courses, Chicagoland is my home track and has seen five of the ten closest finishes in IndyCar history, and Homestead was capable of producing decent races as well. However, ISC was terrible at promoting races at these venues, and there was hardly any fan turnout. ISC is used to not having to advertise, as they have the "bring them, and they will come" NASCAR mindset. I'm sad to see these tracks go, but it was necessary.


One thing that leaves me scratching my head is that New Hampshire is right in the middle of a string of road courses. Generally, they try to keep the season segmented to prevent teams from having to change the cars from road course to oval packages quickly (this is one of the things they are hoping to remedy with the 2012 car). Thankfully, they have two weeks off before the following race in Sonoma, CA.


All in all, I like the direction the series is headed in. Randy Bernard, the new CEO, really listens to the fans concerns, and is righting the ship. As far as further things I'd like to see, Road America, Phoenix, and Richmond need to be on the schedule, and Chief of Competition Brian Barnhart needs to go! Maybe go the 2011 season with him, but Tony Cotman is writing the rules on the 2012 car, so I suggest that Cotman entirely re-writes Barnhart's rulebook and takes over in 2012!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

MIKE PORTNOY LEAVES DREAM THEATER?!?

I just read an article that about gave me a heart attack. Mike Portnoy has left Dream Theater. The band he created 25 years ago and has nurtured ever since.

He goes on to say that after participating in all the bands he did this year, he was having more fun with them than with Dream Theater. He also said he asked Dream Theater to take a brief hiatus, as they've been on a never-ending write/record/tour cycle for the better part of the last 20 years, but the band didn't want to do that. Portnoy said his heart wouldn't be in the band, and if he continued with them, he'd just be going through the motions. He didn't want to hold the band back, so he decided to leave.

I am still so shocked this happened. I cannot appropriately put into words how much this shakes the band up. They definitely will be nowhere near the same.

Article here

One Small Step for a Man

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 7/20/10)

On this day 41 years ago, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon, an engineering feat that has yet to be topped. A giant leap for mankind at the time, indeed, but I'm really disappointed we haven't gone back.
However, it really upsets me that a large portion of this planet truly believes that mankind has never been to the moon. As an aerospace engineer, frankly, this really pisses me off. I know the science behind it. Is it difficult? Of course it is. But we have definitely done it, in 1969 with the computing power of a modern microwave, if that.
I'd like to take this time to try and debunk the conspiracy theory, explain why space exploration is a good thing, and link the conspiracy theories to an interesting conclusion I made.
First, on debunking the conspiracy theory, I have three main arguments. First, the Russians' hubris is ridiculous, i.e., they strapped TWELVE engines to the main stage of a rocket fueled by inferior kerosene as compared to liquid hydrogen, and wonder why they couldn't get all that weight off the ground. This hubris SURELY led the Russians to be tracking the mission the ENTIRE time, and if there was any indication whatsoever that the mission was faked, the Russians would have come forward with that data.
Next, Armstrong and Aldrin placed a laser reflector on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission. Observatories all over the world (particularly American observatories in the mountains in California) frequently fire lasers at this reflector to measure the distance between the moon and the earth (speed of light x time taken for signal to return/2 gives this distance). Just go to one of those observatories, I'm sure they'd love to demonstrate for you.
Finally, with all the work that would have gone into faking the mission and making it look real, it would have been easier to send three men to the moon. And if you STILL don't believe it, well, then I triple-dog-dare you to walk up into Armstrong's or Aldrin's face (probably Aldrin, he's feisty, Armstrong is too calm to care) and tell them they didn't walk on the moon.
We haven't been back since the Apollo missions because the general public feels its a waste of money, so the government obliges and spends less money on the space program. Many great technologies were developed for space use, and then were given back to us on the surface. One such example: the ball point pen. There already were ball-point pens, but they were greatly improved after research for space missions so astronauts could write in zero-g. Ingenious, yes, but possibly unnecessary (the Russians used a pencil). Tons of fuel-saving measures on engines wind up coming back to automobiles. Rocket engines see temperatures of greater than 5000 K and all kinds of innovative technologies are implemented to keep them cool, and that technology comes back to the surface as well. The possibilities are limitless.
Alas, the government has all but quit funding NASA. Obama's new NASA budget was a huge slap in the face. However, the private space sector is booming, and I suspect we'll be back on the moon no later than 2030, and I doubt it will be government funded.
Finally, a lot of the reasons I get from people for not believing we went to the moon spark an interesting comparison in religion. People don't think we've been to the moon because there isn't enough proof or that there are tons of scenarios in which the moon landings could have been staged. I'll preface this by saying that I am NOT an atheist, but many atheists don't believe in God for exactly the same reasons. And the percentage of people on this planet who don't believe we've been to the moon is far greater than the percentage of people on this planet who are atheist (at least it seems that way to me. I don't have any exact stats). The comparison is staggering, and frankly, a little shocking.

The Next Generation IndyCar

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 7/15/10)

Yesterday, the next generation IndyCar to begin competition in 2012 was unveiled at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Watching the announcement streaming live from www.indycar.com, I felt like a kid at Christmas once again, as everything I was hearing was music to my ears.
Dallara, the current (and only) car manufacturer, will provide what is being called the "IndyCar Safety Cell," which comprises of the driver's tub, nose, engine compartment, undertray. wing mounts, and suspension pieces among other things. Any company that so wishes can also provide the aero kit for the car. The aero kits can take on any size and shape as long as they fit within the certain size parameters and comes in at less than $70K. The safety cell from Dallara will come in at $345K, with a full car from Dallara and $385K, approximately a 45% drop in current price.
I really like this idea, and was implemented to satisfy the best of three worlds. First, Dallara has provided IndyCars for nearly a decade, and have been the sole chassis supplier for much of that time, so IndyCar wanted to give them as much business as possible. Second, most fans (myself included) wanted to see more than just one car configuration running around the track, and this formula makes is possible for cars run by each team to look completely different. Third, with the current rules package, any trick parts added by teams were their own property and would not be shared with other teams. The new formula mandates that all aero kits must be approved by the league for certain safety and cost parameters, and once it is approved, it will be made available to all the teams. That means that if Penske or Ganassi, the two powerhouses in IndyCar today, discover something groundbreaking for their cars, it must be shared with everyone else.
The new spec coming in for 2012 will be remarkable on all counts. It will be lighter, faster, racier, and come in at around half the cost of an IndyCar today. Engines are going to be turbocharged, which will allow the league to tune the cars to their whim to keep lap times safe depending on the track, and also to provide enough horsepower to make road racing interesting (the current combination of low power and heavy cars makes road racing BORING!).
Randy Bernard, the new CEO of IndyCar, has done a fantastic job since coming in at the beginning of the year at listening to everyone's request and putting together a new formula that will please everyone.
One thing that remains to be seen is whether these safety cells can be run in the Indy Lights series as well. The Lola car proposal kept a common tub between IndyCars and Indy Lights, to reduce costs for each series, and to allow IndyCar teams to easily run a Lights team to take advantage of the testing bonus offered for doing so, so that Indy Lights teams can run a few IndyCar races throughout the year relatively easily, and so that Indy Lights drivers are better prepared for the jump to IndyCar. I hope so, because it is painful to watch Indy Lights drivers dominate the field, then be completely lost behind the wheel of an IndyCar.
In all, the 2012 car announcement created as many questions as were answered, but IndyCar fans world over are surely looking forward to the 2012 season.

A Brief History of Metal

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 6/8/10. There's a month gap here, most of my posts in May were about auto racing news past.)
The other day, I was driving around with my good friend and former staff resident Matt Jackson (his blog can be found here), and we were having a discussion about metal as he went through the mix CD I have in my car. He is borrowing my guitar for the summer and making a valiant effort to learn how to play, and is seeing what I see in metal - the musicianship. Eventually the conversation shifted to the history of metal, of which I actually made a Word document and emailed it to him. The following is that same document. Bear with it, it is somewhat long (I struggled keeping it to two pages!), but very informative if you have a genuine interest on the subject.
Many metal fans have the debate as to who was the original metal band: Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. For me, there is no debate, as they both put the first pieces in place to create metal as we know it today (see my blog for my rule of thumb definition of metal)
I start with Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath was responsible for the sound of metal, that gloomy, dark, heavy sound we know. Tony Iommi, guitarist of the band, was once a metal worker. An accident caused him to lose the fingertips of his fret hand, and wore rubber caps on them when he played, which added to the dark sound. In a review for one of their first shows, their sound was described as being "heavy metal-laden." The moniker of heavy metal stuck.
Here is their song Paranoid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZyVZFJGX5g
Led Zeppelin was responsible for bringing the musicianship, flair, and poetic lyrics to metal. Most bands today have a very good mix of the musicianship and poetry Led Zeppelin was famous for, along with the dark, heavy sound Black Sabbath pioneered.
AC/DC kept metal alive and popularized during the late 70s and early 80s
Two more classic bands from the 70s and 80s metalheads have great dispute over as to who was better are Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. To me, there is no dispute, as the bands are two completely different bands and are impossible to compare.
Judas Priest: Breaking the Law - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU
Iron Maiden: Run to the Hills - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xR4TZsZOPU
Judas Priest were, eccentric, to say the least, and it opened the floodgates to hair metal in the early 80s. I will skip over the hair metal craze, I like to pretend it never happened. A band came around in the early to mid 80s by the name of Metallica to break the hair metal craze, and are the most influential metal band of all time.
After the release of their demo No Life 'Til Leather, guitarist Dave Mustaine was kicked out of the band after a fight with frontman James Hetfield. Mustaine went on to form Megadeth, another one of the most influential metal bands of all time. In my opinion, Megadeth is a better band than Metallica is, but they never met the fame Metallica gained.
Pantera, Anthrax, and Slayer round out the Big Five of 80s thrash metal. Unfortunately, Pantera is not around anymore. Their guitarist Dimebag Darrel was killed onstage in 2004 while playing for Damageplan, a band he started with his brother and former drummer of Pantera Vinnie Paul. Members of Pantera had serious issues with each other, and were never likely to come together again, anyway. The Big Five is now reduced to the Big Four. While Metallica and Megadeth inspired musicianship, Pantera created the "chainsaw" kind of sound most bands have today (mids scooped out), Anthrax brought a punk attitude to metal, and Slayer brought the brutality and disturbing images, all of which still run rampant in metal today.
Pantera: Cowboys from Hell - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_WZkCgeXWk
This rounds out the history of metal and brings us to current bands, of which I will mention some of my favorites (in no particular order):
Trivium is a group from Orlando, a four-piece with members who aren't much older than us. Their front man, Matthew Kiichi Heafy, is half Japanese, and a lot of their newer material is based in Japanese culture and mythology. They also have a lot of material based on Greek mythology.
Pull Harder on the Strings of your Martyr - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0dD59FYxJ4
Shattering the Skies Above - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoUf1bbMTa8 (Newest single!)
Protest the Hero is a group from Canada. Words cannot describe them. I just love them to death. Haha
The Black Dahlia Murder are a bunch or nerdy dudes from Michigan. Songs ranging from Castlevania themed to necrophilia. Very poetic though.
What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0d2LAgN-Q4
This is me keeping it really short, but certainly the highlights!

Spirituality and Religion in Metal

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 4/28/10)
One counterargument I frequently get against metal music is that it is all "devil music." I would hope that by now we had learned to not generalize things into one statement, but alas, here is my rebuttal.
With anything, there are going to be statistical outliers. Are there some metal bands exclusively about Satan or devil worshiping? Yes, there are, I don't deny that. I think you'd also be surprised to find that for every Satanic band out there, you would find a band that worships whichever God they choose to worship. One such band is The Devil Wears Prada. The song linked there is called "Dogs Can Grow Beards All Over" (they are a band whose song titles have nothing to do with the material of the song), and, believe it or not, there are a couple of particular lines in there I'd like to point out:
Don't be ashamed of your faith
And
Dear Lord - deliver me from hypocrisy and surcease
But, both Satanic bands and deity-worshiping bands (I don't want to use the term Christian, because that would exclude other religions) are special cases. They are a very small sliver of metal. I'd say they only make up 5% of the metal scene.
More often, you will find that bands that do address religion and spirituality promote self-thinking, rather than blindly accepting what is written in various books of faith. I am not here to preach religion or anything like that, but I feel the world would be a better place if people thought for themselves rather than accepting what the Bible, Old Testament, Qur'an, or any other religious text has to say without thinking about the message that is being conveyed and making a decision for themselves.

The Future of Space Exploration, An Engineer's Perspective

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 4/21/10)


This is certainly a departure from what I normally write about, but as a future aeronautics and astronautics engineer, this topic hits home for me. I also wrote this as a guest blog on Mike Brownstein's blog, Politics and Pucks.
The space industry has been a huge talking point lately. The space shuttle is at the end of its life cycle, and NASA is exploring new options to send satellites to low-Earth orbit and supplies to the International Space Station. The particular option that NASA has been exploring since day one is over-budget and behind schedule. This is mostly due to creating entirely new parts rather than salvaging parts from the space shuttles, as NASA engineers have been very keen to suggest.

So what's going to happen in the next decade? Long story short, NASA will be paying 
SpaceX, a private company, to send supplies to the Space Station and any satellites into low earth orbit that can be done so in an unmanned mission, and will be paying the Russians to send astronauts into orbit. NASA will continue to work on its manned space program, but based on the past five years, my guess is that it's doomed eternally. So, what should happen in the future? In my humble opinion, shut NASA down.

That's right. You heard me. Shut NASA down.

Well, maybe shut down isn't the right phrase. How about reorganize? Yeah. That's better. NASA can still be around, but they will have no part in actually conducting missions. I'd like to think of it more as NASATA - National Aeronautics and Space Advisory and Training Administration.

The current NASA yearly budget is nearly $19 BILLION. There is no way that the government needs to be spending this much money for as feeble a job they are doing. They should just keep a skeleton crew around. Every recognized private space corporation will have NASATA representatives working for them but paid for by the government, some scientists, some with mission control, some with training of crews, et cetera. My best estimate (which is entirely a guess) is around twenty current, functioning private space agencies. If each of these companies gets ten NASATA reps, that's only 200 employees. Throw each of these people $150k per year (which seems reasonable in my book), that's $30 million for payroll.

Simultaneously, there'll be a committee composed of five experts in the aerospace industry as "higher ups." These people will be in charge of biennial competitions. These competitions will offer a prize of $5 billion for whatever the current competition is. Send a crew to the moon for a week and return them safely, send a crew to orbit Mars and return safely, send a capsule to the moon in and back with a total trip time of X hours, et cetera. Give these five bigwigs $300k per year, and add another $1.5 million to the payroll.

This gives the new NASATA a BIENNIAL budget of $5.063 billion, a whopping 87% drop compared to the current NASA budget. Not only will this reduce government spending, but I feel that it will boost the technology level rapidly in terms of space exploration, and it will reduce the cost of space travel. The jobs that are cut by NASA will most certainly be picked up by the private space sector.

We may even have even broken light speed by 2050.

So What Makes Metal, Metal?

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 4/16/10)

Looking at the "big picture," metal is a special case of rock music. I think we all know what rock is. Aggressive vocals, electric guitar(s), electric bass guitar, drums, occasionally a synthesizer, basic minor scales, et cetera. Then of course the next progression is hard rock, where the volume, distortion, and overdrive on all parameters are increased. So where do you go from hard rock to metal?
In my mind, there are four parameters that are added to make the transition. Intensified vocals (near screaming/screaming), instrument solos, music complexity (time signaturestemposcales varying throughout the song), and a heavy sound to the guitars.
In my own personal research, a band's guitars must be heavy to be metal. But what is heavy? Easy. As much distortion as possible, with bass EQ high and mids scooped out. Treble on the EQ can vary, but it must be at least mid-range. The more treble the guitar has, the "crunchier" it sounds. If you don't understand what I'm talking about with equalizer stuff, just open iTunes/Zune/whatever and start messing with your equalizer. Put the sliders on the left toward the top, the sliders in the middle toward the bottom, and the sliders on the right at mid-range or higher.
Of the three parameters left, it is also my opinion that a band must exhibit two of those parameters. For example, a band that is heavy cannot just have intensified vocals and be considered metal. But add music complexity to the mix, and now you have a metal band. A great example of this is the band Deftones. They are certainly heavy, and the vocals are intense, but the music is bland (4/4 time signature, tempos of around 150), and there are no solos. Thus, to me, Deftones are a hard rock band, not a metal band.
Unfortunately, classifying a band as metal versus hard rock is generally a personal opinion. These parameters are just a rule of thumb, but they have never deterred me from appropriately labeling a band.

Defying Convention

(This post was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 4/9/10)


Something I've been noticing a lot these days is that a lot of the newer metal bands can't be categorized. In some music circles, it's a big deal to try and categorize bands - death metal, thrash metal, progressive metal, metalcore, grindcore, screamcore, mathcore, et cetera et cetera. I wind up using most of these words to describe most of these newer bands.

One such band that defies convention is one that I saw in April, iwrestledabearonce. Certainly, the first word that comes to me is experimental. Followed by screamcore. But they definitely have some thrash to them. A little grindcore, too. In fact, the more I listen to them, the MORE influences I hear.

I think it's come to the point where the only way to categorize a metal band is simply by its name.
Then another question comes up, what categorizes a band as metal? That is a great question, and is the topic of a future blog. (You like that teaser? :-P)

Lame Introduction Post

So, this blog originally started on boilercamp.us. I was getting paid to do it, but as such, I felt like I was pressured into posting about specific topics, and couldn't really let myself flow. Now I do it on my own time and my own terms.

So, this is that lame introduction post where I say a few things about myself. I'm 22 and a fifth-year senior in aeronautics and astronautics engineering (aka rocket science) at Purdue University, with a minor in mathematics. I only needed one more class for it, so why not? My specialization is aerodynamics. I love aerodynamics. I don't care where my career takes me, so long as it involves aerodynamics. My dream job, however, is to design Formula 1 race cars. I finally graduate in May, and then the real world awaits!

I am from a small town called Hobart, Indiana, which is in northwest Indiana, or "The Region." It is about 90 miles north of campus, a straight shot up I-65. I also (somehow) find the time to be a resident assistant at McCutcheon Hall on campus.

So what will this blog entail? First off, I LOVE music. Mostly metal. But I'm fairly open-minded and can listen to just about anything but country, because I don't want to listen to some redneck poorly play three chords on his acoustic guitar and talk about how sad he is.

So how did I become a metalhead? The journey begins around a decade ago when I began my quest to become a musician. My dad had gotten a guitar a few years prior, and I decided to pick it up when I was 13. The better I got, the more complex the music I was listening to became. I started with Blink-182, by 15 I was listening to Disturbed, at 16 I was listening to Megadeth and Metallica, at 17 I was listening to Slayer, and the list grows exponentially from there when I began my college career. In March, I started playing bass as well, and I'm finding I'm actually better at both guitar and bass since I started playing bass.

Aside from music, I am also very passionate about auto racing (particularly IndyCar and Formula 1, and I hate NASCAR with a fiery passion) and baseball. It saddens me that baseball season is about over, even more that my Cubs have been a non-contender all season. Bears season is also right around the corner, and we're looking pretty pathetic this year again. I keep telling myself that they went 0-4 in the preseason before the Super Bowl season in 2006, so I can only hope.

Well, that pretty much ends the lame introductory post. Over the next few days, I'll be reposting some of my favorite posts from boilercamp.us here!