The Z Files

After all, they just got a big chunk of my money. My “2008 Studio Improvement Plan” is in full swing, with the acquisition of Logic Studio and a new iMac (20″, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM (soon to be maxed out to 4 GB) and 500 GB disk). This thing absolutely flies. I ran a quick speed test by doing bounces of a Logic demo project, and the iMac came in at better than 4.5x faster than my old G4…and that was with Logic only using one core! (Hopefully they’ll improve multi-core awareness in a future point update.) Here it is in all its beauty… (full unboxing series @ flickr)

Next up in the studio overhaul: a FireWire audio interface. Right now the likely option appears to be the Focusrite Saffire.

(One note about the pic: you may notice a photo sitting in front of the KRK speaker. That photo means a lot to me. You see, it’s me and my girl. Yep, that’s right, this ol’ dog finally got it right! I’ve been friends with Kari for nearly three years now and it only recently evolved into something more. It’s been almost two months now and I couldn’t be happier!)

(One more thing: no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. I really did paint my room bright green. )

I was elated to read a MacUser post today about Anxiety, a new OS X to-do manager app with a really attractive price of $nada. I was less elated to discover that it requires Leopard. Just my luck. I guess I’ll have to set that aside until I get my new iMac, although when exactly that might be is anyone’s guess.

I’m usually quite critical of our society’s lawsuit mania, but I’m going to put that to the side for the moment…partially, at least. Yesterday’s mail brought notice of a class-action settlement regarding foreign transaction fees on credit cards. While anyone who had a Visa or MasterCard from one of several banks is eligible for a refund, regardless of whether they had any foreign transactions, I can actually morally justify claiming a refund, as I’ve charged a handful of foreign transactions. The end result is that, most likely, I’ll get $25 for fees that I never really had a problem with and that didn’t come close to the amount of my refund. This I won’t complain about!

Waking up is often the toughest part of my day. I’ve thought long and hard about how to kick myself out of bed in the morning. For a time, I considered bringing a Clocky home. (I still may!) Today, I was thrilled to find Alarm Clock. It’s an OS X alarm clock (really!?) app that tucks away in the menu bar and plays whatever you want from your iTunes library. I’m not entirely optimistic about its chances at getting me up in the morning, but I’ll give it a shot.

Symphony X is doing a North American tour that will stop in Toronto on April 11. They’re bringing along both Epica and Into Eternity. That’s one sweet package, as all three put on great shows. This will be the first time I’ve seen SymX do a full set, as my only experience with them was their brief second-stage appearance in Gigantour ‘05. It will be my third time seeing both Epica and IE.

Now for the bad news: the Sonata Arctica/Visions of Atlantis tour is pretty much avoiding anywhere touched on this fall’s Sonata tour, so I’ll likely take a pass on that.

I’ve been working on a new original song for a little while, and it’s now finished. It’s a little bit of a departure from the stuff I’ve done to this point. The lyrics are kind of a joke… Kari insisted that I find some use for the phrase “crotch killer.” The first thing that came to mind was the Bobbitt insanity, so I ran with it. (lyrics can be found after the jump.) So, after four long years of no full-on originals, I present “P.A.B.”

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I consider myself lucky to have gotten the chance to see After Forever tonight on their first North American tour, especially considering that I only started listening to them around the holidays last year. In that span of maybe ten months, they’ve become my second-favorite band.

I arrived at the Funhaus in Toronto (the show had been moved from the larger Opera House) only 20 minutes before doors and was surprised to see only 10 or so people waiting ahead of me. After getting inside, I planted myself against the stage toward stage left, where I knew AF guitarist/grunter Sander Gommans would be stationed.

I was surprised that there was no local opener. Unexpect opened the show with a seriously twisted brand of metal. I can’t even describe it…they were just totally whacked. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I’ll be checking them out after that performance.

After Forever was every bit as good as I had hoped. The early songs were hampered by problems with Sander Gommans’s guitar rig: his wireless died only seconds into “Discord.” The tech wired him up with a guitar cable, but it took a few songs to get everything straightened out. The performance itself was excellent, though. Everyone was on their game. The set list was strong. They did a rendition of Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” with Bas Maas on lead vocals. The selections from the new album were strong. I was especially happy to hear “Lonely,” as I’m a sucker for the piano ballads. I wish they had played more than one song from Invisible Circles, but the set was still nice as it was.

After the show, the band came out to meet fans at the merch table. I was impressed by that. I was planning to hang out at the bus and try to meet the band, but it was a really nice gesture that they would come out like that. I met Floor, Bas, Joost van den Broek and Luuk van Gerven. I saw Andre Borgman, but he disappeared before I could get to him. I didn’t see Sander, which is kind of a shame because he was the person I most wanted to meet, apart from Floor. Despite that, it was a great way to close out a very memorable evening.

Photos at Flickr, setlist after the jump…

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It’s been confirmed by Mike Portnoy, although not officially announced: Opeth will be the opener on Dream Theater’s spring North American tour! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll come back to UB or another local venue. Of course, it won’t stop me if they don’t stop here. That’s going to be one heck of a show. It would be awesome to hear Mikael Akerfeldt doing grunts with DT on “The Dark Eternal Night”…wow.

Monday saw the return to Buffalo of one of the greatest guitarists in rock, but with a new twist. Steve Vai put his usual touring band, The Breed, on hiatus and formed the new String Theories Band. Because this tour is in support of the live orchestral Sound Theories album, Vai took this opportunity to go in a different direction, adding violinists Alex DePue and Ann Marie Calhoun to the band, along with new bassist Bryan Beller and Breed holdovers Dave Weiner (second guitar) and Jeremy Colson (drums). As usual, I had avoided all news about the tour. I knew nothing more than that Vai was touring with violinists. It made for some nice surprises.

The opening act was Zack Wiesinger. Normally, he plays a solo acoustic set. For this show, though, he was in band form with Guitar Zack and No Slack. He gave an interesting performance of quirky blues-based rock with side-splitting lyrics in the vein of Frank Zappa.

Vai was in fine form, tearing through nearly twenty compositions with his usual flair for the extravagant. This show seemed less self-indulgent than other Vai performances, which certainly had something to do with the new band. The violinists were an awesome addition, adding a new layer of sound and opening the door to new arrangements like in “For the Love of God,” which featured a violin intro similar to Tony MacAlpine’s keyboard intro from recent years.

The show had its unique moments, from the failure of Vai’s wireless unit that prompted him to actually stop the band midway through “Firewall,” through the Silly String assault on birthday boy Dave Weiner and a roadie who had the misfortune of sharing Dave’s birthday. I wasn’t going to try picking highlights because the entire show was at such a high level, but I was very happy to hear “Oooo,” “Firewall,” “Freak Show Excess” and “All About Eve.”

Vai showed on Monday that not only is he at the top of his game as a guitarist, but that his musicianship in general is better than ever. He’s truly one-of-a-kind, a fact cemented by his live show.

Photos (contrary to Vai policy, as I found out after the show) at Flickr, setlist after the jump.

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I was really pumped up to see Sonata last night at Peabody’s in Cleveland. I saw them once before, in Toronto on their first North American tour in April 2005. I didn’t know their music at the time, and that show was what made me a fan. In a way, this was a little like seeing them for the first time because I didn’t know the songs last time.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Gravity open the show. They were the local opener when I saw Kamelot last year, and they were even better this time than last year. Great bombastic instrumental prog-metal. I recommend these guys.

The touring opener, The Agonist, was less impressive. They’re just another extreme metal band, but with a female aggro vocalist. A girl near me in the crowd referred to her as a “razor-eating bitch.” They were OK, but nothing special. I was particularly unimpressed by the guitars, as they sounded like a flock of mosquitoes. I couldn’t make out one note of the leads played by the guitarist directly in front of me. No big loss, though.

Sonata were on their game. Tony’s pipes were in top form, hitting all the high notes. The new guitarist, Elias, blew me away. I was sad to see Jani go, but Elias is at least as much a showman and his chops are better than Jani’s. I was particularly happy to see him playing through a Mesa amp rig that sounded very similar to mine. My only real complaint about the show is the sound, as it was hard to hear Henrik’s synth parts at times. The energy was good, and Tony looked like he was having a blast. The setlist was no surprise, as they’ve been playing the same selections at every show. The choices were good, but not perfect. I would have preferred some different song choices from the new album, Unia, especially. ‘In Black and White” isn’t nearly as good an opener as “Misplaced” was on the Reckoning Night tour, and I just don’t care much for “Paid in Full.; I would have loved to hear “The Harvest” and/or “Out in the Fields,” which is actually the bonus track on Unia. (I wonder what it means when the bonus track is my favorite?) Sonata will return early next year. Only West Coast dates have been announced thus far, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some eastern dates.

Photos at Flickr, setlist after the jump…

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