How to write and perform an Old School Metallica Song

How to Write and perform an Old School Metallica Song.

Some background requirements before begining. Lead singer should have a problem with alcohol, the drummer should have got drool on his IQ test but have an ego bigger than his fat round face.

The bass player should be a pushover and the lead guitarist should be a quiet fellow who lets his chops do the talking. Long hair is compulsory for all band members.

Intro:

Begin with a slow, melodic solo.
Add a monster riff that slowly builds over the solo. (If more experienced, reverse these two)
Enter drum beat with a percussion mallet.

Hit those toms faster and faster

Verse:

Continue monster riff with extra rhythm.
Depending on quality of bass player, bass is optional.
Begin singing about the injustice of war, how black your heart is and death in general . Do not include lyrics about love for your mama until you go mainstream.

Chorus:

Metallica don't need no stinking chorus, merely another line about death.

Bridge:

Break for a different arrangement of the monster riff. Include a hint of the 10 minute solo to come.

Verse:

Remind your fans that this is a song about the black death and your stuck at home in sanitarium. Keep that riff going.

Kirk Hammet Type Solo:

Cut from verse and slow it down so people know something cool is going to happen. Replay initial solo but with variation on melody. Get faster. Nope not fast enough. Play it faster. So people know you are serious muscians, change key and add in different guitar effect. Walk up and down the fret board until it bleeds.

Rinse of the blood, repeat

Play drums faster. Play Monster Riff faster. Play 5th solo way fareeeking fast.

Quick Verse:

The song is still about death and the dance of the dead so remind listeners of this fact. Kill 'em all!

Outro: Play fast for 5 seconds.

And you're done, a perfectly crafted old school Metallica song.

Now go play some Metallica!

Extra for Experts:

If you need some lyrical inspiration, find some Metallica lyrics here and here are the lyrics to Death Magnetic, the new Metallica album. And for something completely new, check out the lyrics to Mistress Dread by Metallica.

The Jesus Phone is coming to NZ with help from Vodaphone

Update JJ gives his Iphone Review over here...dCould

When it was announced by Mr Apple, Steve Jobs that the iphone was coming to NZ, Jimmy Jangles wept for joy. Like as in Jesus Wept but not really. Soon as I saw it was up on vodaphone.co.nz, I registered my intention to buy the iphone.

And lo behold the angels did sing and thus this iphone email came to my inbox today:

-

Hi, Jimmy Jangles,

You're Awesome, better than Chuck Norris*

Here at Vodafone, we're eagerly counting down the days until the launch of the new iPhone 3G - and we bet you are too!

We will be rolling out our exciting iPhone 3G plans very soon. So make sure to keep an eye on your inbox to stay ahead of the game. What's really exciting is NZ will be one of the first countries in the world with the iPhone 3G!

Stocks will be limited so you'll need to be quick

-

So there you have it. An email that says nothing and everything. It's kind of like an episode of Seinfeld but without the white sneakers and whiny best friend. The iphone is coming! Jesus, I'm sure, must be about to crack a smile.

*Not techincally exactly the saluation Vodaphone sent.

Flight of the Conchords: It's NOT business time for TVNZ

Flight of the Conchords: It's NOT business time for TVNZ

This NZ Herald article digs deeper into the well known business of TVNZ choosing to pass on producing the Flight of the Conchords' television show which became an HBO hit in America, the land of the free.

Not so free in NZ to make a TV show however. The article suggests that TVNZ baulked at the $300,000 that was budgeted for the show.

Some might say, "Goh! TVNZ, you Idiot!" but one should ask the question would have the show taken off in America if it had of been made in NZ ? Probably not. It probably would not have got such a great director/ writer (Ali G's dude), nor would it have got the quirky side kicks that often have the best moments in the Conchords Show. It could have easily ended up as that show b

Certainly the Flight of the Conchord's major release of their debut would not have made it to number 3 on the American Billboard charts.

I doubt Brett (very rock and roll) and Jermain (present, Murray) are too worried about being passed up in NZ, this perceived slight has turned out to be a blessing - it drove them to America and almost folk heroism overnight.

Who can't hardly wait for series two?

What's the difference between a rock guitarist and a jazz guitarist?

Question: What's the difference between a rock guitarist
and a jazz guitarist?

Answer: A rock guitarist gets to play three chords in
front of thousands of people.

H/T Pop bitch

That Daniel Vettori seemed like such a nice young man....

That Daniel Vettori seemed like such a nice young man....



Don't make Daniel Vettori mad, you won't like him when he's mad.

Pablo Picasso was a breast man

So I went to Brisbane. It's like a high rent hooker called Dupré, compared to the 2 dollar crack whore from Melbourne named Divine.

I mean I had a good time.

So I went to a real life Pablo Picasso painting exhibition. The Gallery that hosts the exhibition describes it as featuring "over 100 works from Picasso's extraordinary collection plus more than 80 important works by the artist himself."

I describe it as pictures from a dirty old man who liked to sit around all day drawing pictures of hookers and whores with big hairy breasts. BIG HAIRY BREASTS people! On seeing this I was surprised that Gillette (the best a man can get) does not sponsor the exhibition...

The pretty cool thing was that Picasso traded his work for other works so part of the collection was some of the paintings that inspired him - so there were drawings and prints by artists such as Chardin, Matisse, Renoir (more breasts), Cézanne, Rousseau, Miró, Modigliani and Braque, as well as an entirely boring selection of Oceanic and African works.

My favourite painting actually was Henri Matisse's Maguerite

When I first saw this I was struck by the the simplicity of Matisse’s style. You can see here how Matisse reaches the paintings apogee with the use of large blocks of solid colour and very minimalist touches, with simple lines for the eyes and nose. One may also be drawn to consider that Matisse must be admired for the courage it must have taken for this master of Fauvism to express himself with such candour.

Or you could just like the green dress and the funny way of spelling Margaret.

Backstreets Back Alright!

Jay Bee and I were shopping for a dress for her today and in the clothing store they were playing the Backstreet Boys and, man, that depressed me.

And then I realised half the females in the store were singing the bloody chorus. And that depressed me even more.

I looked up and saw another poor bugger waiting for his girlfriend, he gave me the knowing look of 'I wish I was home watching the rugby' and I started thinking about having a Steinlager.

We didn't find a dress.

Most over Rated Bands of Recent Times

Most over Rated Bands of Recent Times:

The Bravery

There endeth the lesson.

Mary had a little Lamb

So like I know, the service on this blog has been poor as the Wellington bus service but I have an excuse ok? Its been cold and I have had to eat roasts to keep warm. And left overs. Bless with praise the person that invented left overs. I think the best kind of left over is the classic boiled potatoes from the garden that you refried with dangerous amounts of butter. To go with the bacon and sausages you see. Maybe the odd hash brown for good measure.

Now that I've warmed up a bit, I'm wondering what's for lunch.

Weekend that Was: The Happening

Weekend that Was: It Happened

Fri / Atonement
Sat / Friends / Wine / Steinlager / Rugby
Sun / Hike over Mt Vic / The Happening (Shayamalan returns to form)

The Check List

The Check List:

Shaved head
Hung out washing
Turned off X Box 360
Teeth, Nice and Clean
Put on some Jazz
Worried about strong England pack
Dismiss 20 / 20 as a sport that actually matters
Played some Oasis
Played some Metallica Death Magnetic

Somethings missing...

Weekend that was: Atonement

I did nothing that needed atoning but I did watch Atonement which I vaguely recall was nominated for all the Oscars but won none. It should have have best cinematography. The extended beach sequence is ... art.

Meh, War is hell.

A game of two contrasts

To whomever searched for "shortland st+toni dies" ..yes she did but I'm more concerned about John Locke, or Jeremey as he seems to be known as...

Halo 3 is better than Sex

Why Halo 3 is better than Sex: Or an essay on why killing aliens and saving the planet Earth is better than doing things with limbs pressed in odd places.

I guess the first one is obvious, even to people like Tom Cruise, who despite their love of Zenu know in their hearts that Halo 3 is better than sex because you can never fire blanks in Halo 3. Every shot a head shot.

Speaking of shots, after landing one in Halo 3 you don't have to clean up the mess.

You can fire your gun as many times as you like in Halo 3. You can reload in a second and get that double and triple kill and God forbid an overkill of four. Good luck getting a triple thrill in the sack on a cold night.

You can always wear your big green Master Chief space suit while playing Halo 3. Good luck wearing a green and gold spartan helmet with your nearest and dearest when playing 'hide the sausage'.

Halo 3 doesn't get upset if you play with more than one Xbox 360. With sex, you are generally lucky to have a box to slip your di$k in. Some times you have to pay $360 for the priviledge of slipping it in.

It's really easy to get three or four players to form a group for a long drawn out session of Halo. Not so easy arranging a group sex session.

If your gun in Halo 3 fires bolts of green fire, people will admire you. If your gun, while having sex fires green, see a doctor, like now. Seriously, now. You booked the appointment right?

With Halo 3 you can take pictures and movies of your sweet moves from any angle, put them on the internet and share them with your friends. With your sexcapades, unless you are Paris Hilton, you don't want a video of your ass crack winking at the world on porntube do ya?

Update:

Given it a refresh, added some more jokes. Reposted to get Dug. Do ya Digg?

This is the guest post I did for The Whore. Seeing as its old news, like U2 and Sunday, Bloody Sunday, I'm stealing it back. typos amended care of his Whoreness and big ups to Halo.bungie.org for linking to me, like a gabillion hits overnight.

The Working Day

Type / Type / Edit / Type / Steinlager

LOG: QUERIED ADJACENT FACILITIES

LOG: QUERIED ADJACENT FACILITIES
LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility [alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon, zeta, and kappa sites] have all replied [systems normal] within expected constraints. This would tend to signify that the containment failure was purely mechanical in nature; perhaps a manufacturing flaw. As no [outside agent] has accessed [delta site] in the past [874068942 hours, 4 minutes, 46 seconds]—[allowing for a 61360 hour, 54, minute, 2 second margin of error]—sabotage would seem unlikely.
LOG: REQUEST UNANSWERED
LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility; [delta site] is currently being held at [.01 atm] / [184K]. Local maintenance and security hubs have failed to reply within expected constraints. [Bumping maintenance and security request up] to [quadrant oversight].
LOG: REQUEST UNANSWERED
LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility; [delta site] is currently being held at [1 atm] / [278K] as atmospheric seals were showing signs of stress. [Quadrant oversight] has failed to reply within expected constraints. [Bumping maintenance and security request all the way up] to 2401 [PENITENT TANGENT].
LOG: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO FACILITIES
LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility; [delta site] emergency [slip stream space] transportation conduits have been accessed by unauthorized parties.
LOG: FILED COMPLAINT TO INSTALLATION 00
2401 [PENITENT TANGENT], monitor of Installation 05, has been lax in the areas of maintenance and security. Requests for aid in said areas have gone unanswered by both 2401 and [subservient] systems well beyond expected constraints.

Weekend that was Pt I Missed Shortland Street

Weekend that was:

Fri / Drinks chez Hope Brothers / Disturbia (entertaining farce)
Sat / Drive in the Rain / All Blacks at the Cambridge with Turtle / Steinlagers
Sun / Painting / Netball (27 all) / Alvin Toffler

What would Matt Cutts do?

What would Matt Cutts do?

Some of you might have realised that Jimmy Jangles does more than simply haunt the pages of The Optimus Prime Experiment and engages in a few side sites, mainly The Spaghetti Incident? That blog started out with the intention of being focussed on music but it kind of floundered. Now I've discovered its niche in the interwebz and I focuss on providing setlists from rock concerts.

People seem to love set lists, the fan boys go nuts when they realise that Stone Temple Pilots have played their first gig together, Radiohead is touring America and played a random U2 B-side or that R.E.M. played Ignoreland for the first time ever in concert.

Ideally I'll make some money off the site and I also want it to be popular. A purple cow or something. So I've been learning all about search engine optimisation which is basically a way of saying, make your page so Google likes it and ranks you over the other purple cows in the paddock.

So from reading SEO sites like Mr Neil Harvey, Edyran and Matt Cutts I've learnt some of the basics of SEO design.

Matt Cutts is the guy that is Google's public face for rules about using Google's Adsense program and search engine optimisation. He is the guy that puts the fear into SEO black hatters - people who try and trick search engines into ranking their pages higher than others by dubious means.

Here's my brief summary of what search engine optimisation technigues have worked for The Spaghetti Incident? Proof it works? Visits in Feb - a few a day. Visits in May 300 - 600 unique per day (increased content has of course helped but I figure the following has too).

Content: I've tried to put on set lists of rock concerts of bands I like, have heard, respect etc. A couple of posts every day means the Google spiders are likely to visit more often and get my content into the google hivemind.

Titles: The titles of each post generally reflect three things: The band's name, that it's their set list and some kind of geographic tag. Searchers look to titles for info on what the subject of the post is. Don't be like a newspaper or woman's magazine and say something outrageous and unrelated to the content. It will just annoy people and they will bounce from your site quicker than a Brett Lee beamer.

Content and Key Words: As they say, content is king. Seeing as one set list of a concert can easily be copied from one site to another (that's how I do it) I try and add a lil bit of an intro to the set list, trying to incorporate the key words that were used in the title. I often use a lil of my own music knowledge and chuck in a factoid or two. Making the key words bold is apparently a good idea too. Good content is not however, it needs to be noticed!

Links:Links to your webpages are like votes in an election. He or she who has the most votes wins right? He who has the most votes, because of their great written content, wins.

Pictures: The SEO experts all say to use images in the post as the google's algorithm likes that stuff (and related links too). Naming the photo properly, giving it a caption and using the famous "alt tag" description gets you into google. Search under Images in Google using the key words 'Jimmy Jangles' and you'll see what I mean. Some people get in photos real fancy like visual sliders..

Making the site sticky: If people stick around and read more than one set list I reckon there is a better chance they will click a google ad and bring me 15 cents closer to retirement. So I try and offer at the end of every set list a url which takes them to more set lists of the artist within the site.

Always provide your source. It's just good manners and Google love's links.

This is all a very amateurish approach but its fun learning about all this stuff. If you want to know more you can ask yourself what would Matt Cutts do?

Extra for Experts: Angels and Demons guide to good SEO ranking in Google

Jimmy Jangles' Transformers T-Shirt Collection

So like it seems like it's Transformers Week here at The Optimus Prime Experiment. If you like, you may blame my grandparents for being me back Mirage from the United States even before Transformers were cool in NZ. I just loved them for it.

You can however blame Jay Bee for this post. A couple of Valentine's ago she got me a Transformers T shirt. It's the one with the Autobot logo to the right. Since that time I have gone Transformers T Shirt Mad. For that you can blame cheap Jay Jay sales... They got a sweet range for 10 bucks a pop in the Manners Mall store Wellington if you keen...

So here's my Transformers T shirt Collection. Enjoy!



This is Jimmy Jangles' T Shirt Collection. Look I know you're jealous, buy your own.



Optimus Prime Megatron Logo



Optimus Prime Red Logo, in old school pose.



Transformers the Movie, featuring Rodimus Prime and Arcee



Autobot Logo on Blue Background



Optimus Prime In Da Hood Logo



Transformers Decepticon Soundwave


Transformers Decepticon Starscream. He's like the fan favourite bad guy. Well its either him or Soundwave.

Optimus Prime T Shirt Banned from a Flight

So like like The Optimus Prime Experiment goes into overdrive this week with a third post on the megatron munting machine.

Turns out a British fellow by the name of of Brad Jayakody was stopped by airport guards from boarding his flight because he was wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing Optimus Prime, fearless leader of the Autobots brandishing a cartoon gun....



Is this what the world has come to? Under educated service staff deeming cotton being a potential terrorist threat? What if Brad had been wearing a Starscream T-shirt? Would the airline have called in the Queen's Royal Guards?

And because I've been drinking I just thought of a joke. What do you get if you cross Optimus Prime with Jake Heke? Optimuss Prime!

For those readers that don't come from New Zealand, thats a reference to Jake the Muss from the film Once Were Warriors.

Nobody white washes Optimus Prime!

So like I love this picture of Optimus Prime. It's a throw up* piece that I found on the bottom of the steps on Hood Street Street.



As I wandered past it on Saturday I saw some dude was whitewashing the building next to the steps. Sensing the worse, I checked, and sure enouugh the whole wall of graffiti was gone. Just like nobody puts baby in the corner, nobody white washes Optimus Prime!

So here's my appeal - whoever did the stencil, please do it again!!!!

Disclaimer: Like the wise judge in Hastings, Jimmy Jangles does not endorse the practice of tagging on public and private property. Unless its Prime time.

* I learnt that term from watching Mu and the cool kids doing the business on Shortland Street. Not that I watch Shortland Street you understand.

Optimus Prime

Man petrol prices are getting so high Optimus Prime has been grumbling about having to take the bus to work. "The Loser Cruiser is for losers," he cried. "It should be Megatron on the bus, not me, the fearless Autobot leader!"

He then mumbled something about peace loving hippies voting for the Green Party and rolled out to save Bumblebee from falling for an obviously set Constructicon trap.



Pictured: Optimus Prime, not a fan of the loser cruiser.

Google Puts Edmund Hilary as their Front Page Logo

Google Puts Sir Edmund Hilary as their Front Page Logo

Is it only me or has anyone else noticed that Google has kindly changed their home page logo to represent Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing's ascent on Mount Everest? I think it's to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the time that the mountain was first defeated.



Google often does this kind of nod to various events, it's great to see they thought of a New Zealander!

Here's the poem I wrote for Sir Edmund the day he died (slighty revised):

Kiwi Made

Bigger than a Mountain
With a step longer than the Ganges
His picture on the fiver

A bee keeper by trade
Who'd drive a tractor across the ice?
A public hero with no vice
The very definition of Kiwi Made

Weekend that Was: Pt Queen's Birthday

Weekend that Was: Pt Queen's Birthday

Fri / work drinks / drinks Black Harp / dinner Floridita - had the groper, A+
Sat / hiked all over Mt Vic / finished jurassic park novel - now scared of DNA
Sun / went in to work, worked / visited the manatee's
Mon / watched the devil's own / cooked a roast chicken
Tues / Back to reality / Cheers to Queen Victoria for long weekend

The Smuggler

The Smuggler

REPORT: CONTAINMENT FAILURE

LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility; [delta site] has experienced catastrophic specimen containment failure. All apertures into facility will be locked until further notice. Atmosphere evacuation and [reduction of ambient temperature] protocols have already been enacted. Request maintenance and security detail [at earliest opportunity]. [8 minutes] elapsed since initial containment failure.


REPORT: CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Waiting for maintenance and security detail. [32 minutes, 9 seconds] elapsed since request.


REPORT: CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Still waiting for maintenance and security detail. [24 hours] elapsed since request.


REPORT: SECURITY BREACH

LF.Xx.3273 research and containment facility; [delta site] has experienced a security breach via emergency [slip stream space] transportation conduits. Emergency [slip stream space] transportation conduits have been placed in recursive mode to contain unauthorized hostile lifeforms. Request emergency security detail. Still waiting for primary maintenance and security detail. [2512332 hours, 14 minutes, 6 seconds]elapsed since initial request.


REPORT: DERELICTION OF DUTY

2401 [PENITENT TANGENT] has been lax in the areas of maintenance and security.