Randall Amplification

The Randall MTS modular tube series is a great design. But I've noticed that my musical tastes have shifted more and more in the last few months of summer, and late fall getting into winter. Let's make this absolutely clear. I love metal. Metal is one of the greatest psychedelic originated sounds available today. Here is something that I don't like: Conformity. With the latest rising of new metal we see the same thing that happened in the 1980s. ALL THE SHIT sounds the same! I'm listening to my poor pathetic excuse of a radio station in my car and I here the same line-up of corporate bullshit sound everyday namely:

Disturbed.
Saliva.
Drowning Pool.
Stone Sour.
Slipknot.
Breaking Benjamin.
Three Days Grace.


Do you see where I'm getting with this list? NO WHERE!! The sound is all the same. It all sounds exactly like the next band just about. With off-radio metal there is some real diversity in tone. Black Metal is not American Southern Metal is not Progressive Metal. The genres speak for themselves...

Dischordant metal is not Melodic metal.

I've abandoned the Metal scene. NOT THE SOUND. The Scene. I no longer care about what certain artists are doing. What their albums are doing, what direction there band is heading... I've grown so sick of this unchanging drone of single variety music. Where is the creativity? Where is the originality? Where is the individuality?

Simply put. There is none. None at all. Here's why:

People are not open to new ideas.


I think that we can all agree to this. Seeing how many of us have experienced it firsthand. Some of us deny that. More yet say that it's not true and that the music is good. If that's all the radio plays that must mean that popular opinion matters right?

Not necessarily. Radio stations have to meet expectations of sponsors to receive some their funding. This is because radio stations typically do not charge you while you tune into their frequency. Commercials being heard over the air are what the sponsors are in it for. So what happens is that as a DJ you can be handed a sheet with certain bands on it and you have to play these bands here and sometimes here.

If you are a specific station and you meet a student demographic that is your sound and you are doomed. Stations unfortunately get into the habit of being adopted by genre. Funk, 80s metal, grunge, hip-hop. Disturbed is our Whitesnake, our GNR. Bands like that have become what the 80s hair metal scene was then:


LIFESTYLE.

Modern marketing today depends on one simple concept: Consumerism is a way of life. Not a habit. To successfully market to a target demographic you must convince that market that what you have to offer is "how is should be." In simpler terms, you must sell the lifestyle. Lie to them, entice them. You cannot simply market a product in the US, you must also sell the lie. Sell the lifestyle and you have one (temporarily) very happy customer.

This has led to record labels finding the same bands to offer contracts to and why the diversity and variety of the sonic pallet is so bitter tasting. All this disgust, all this anger, all this raging is really grumpy, sour, whiners. The music that goes on across these airwaves is so grotesquely unappealing that we have to find some way to allow alternative sounds in.

Go out and research this:

Midwest and Southern Rock Revival.


Do you know who the target mob for this new metal genre is? The Midwest. That is the target audience. How many of these bands come out of the Midwest? Several. What about the most popular? Chicago typically is what many will point to.


Here are some bands that NEED to be shown to the public.

My Morning Jacket- Louisville, KY
The Black Keys- Akron, OH
The Raconteurs- Nashville, TN
Kings of Leon- Nashville, TN
The Thunders- Indianapolis, IN
Dr. Dog- Philadelphia, PA



Robert Plant, Billy Gibbons, Josh Homme, Johnny Greenwood, Thom Yorke- all fans of the band. And what's more there is a lot of unity and "help out a friend" attitudes in this scene. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters helped Homme rise to fame with Queens of the Stone Age, and Homme is producing the new Arctic Monkeys album. (Their drummer frequently wears a Black Keys shirt.) Beck, DangerMouse, the list continues.

But their are a ton of new sounds popping up all over the place. Go out and find one. Wrestle it, challenge it, fight it, but most of all sit there and think this for this is the most important aspect and ingenious design of music:

What emotion does it inspire in me?