Not much is going on today. Got the rim changed on the wife's car finally. It is order day at the store, so I'll be leaving to do that here shortly.
Hopefully I'll have a bit of time tonight to work on my HERO System/Champions game that runs tomorrow. These guys need a good old-fashioned fight, so I need to work on thugs to give it to them.
The P.O.D.S. unit is supposed to be at the store on Friday, thus the first step of store improvement will be taken.
As for tonight, we have Casual Magic: the Gathering going on as well as a DC Universe RPG starting up. I will say this, if our Casual M:tG night doesn't start picking up, I will can it. Right now we have as many regular Yu-gi-oh players as M:tG players showing up, which isn't many.
We have zero interest in supporting Yu-gi-oh. The singles market for it is more erratic (and less profitable overall) than Magic. The sets come out rather quickly, and they don't seem to be tested at all. Finally, after talking with a number of store owners who do carry the product, I'm finding that eighty percent of their shoplifting issues stem from their Yu-gi-oh crowds. I really don't want to get into the habit of calling the cops to bust eight to twelve year-old kids. It would be a serious bummer. Basically the Yu-gi-oh scene is where the M:tG scene was at its age. Theft is commonplace and the scene hasn't had the needed time to mature. In a few years, we'll look at it again, if the game is still around.
This is the northwest section of a ginormous map I had started working on for Tai'eres. I have most of the physical features of the land in my notes and have electronically sketched out he major features in three of four sections.
Rules wise, I am having trouble finding some of earliest work with the system and setting. I have the files somewhere, and I should have hard copy of at least some of it. Trouble is, trying to find where I've put it since there was a house move in between when I put the stuff away and when I am now looking for it.
I've run two campaigns with the setting, with major changes to the rules in between them. Looking back, there were a lot of things I liked about the the earlier rule set better than the revision. There are still some warts with it, but I think I've figured out ways around them.
If I can find an earlier electronic file of the rules, then that will save me from having to recreate the version from memory, which I'm not entirely certain I could do. I am getting older, after all...
I do believe that this will be my project du jour for the moment. I enjoyed my time with Tai'eres. More than I originally thought apparently, since I keep going back to it in my mind.
Another day, and another part of the routine with a few kinks. The wife's car is still on the donut. That should be fixed tomorrow, but it does mean she needs a ride to and from work (30 miles away) today. I have the ability to get her there, but by the time she is off, the store will have been open two hours. Thus, we have a good friend picking her up (Thanks, HighSign!).
Beyond that, store improvement plans proceed at an iceberg pace, but they are proceeding. We are calling for the portable storage unit today, and, if it all goes to plan, it will be behind the store on Thursday. Then we get to start moving stuff into it. Then we clean out the office and move more stuff into it... and so on... and so on... and so on.
(This one is, in part, for Jill, who gave me some confidence as a music reviewer when she asked my to write some album reviews for her short-lived ’zine. She liked what I had to say, but hated my overuse of ellipses. Well, Jill… As you can see, I still like ellipses, but have curtailed my use of them significantly.)
Okay, this one is going to be a bit difficult for me. I almost reviewed this disc last week, but chickened out. Why? Simple. For a long time, I was a huge raving fan boy for Faith No More. They are still one of my all time favorite bands, and I wasn’t entirely certain I could review them objectively or not. After thinking about it for the last seven days or so, I concluded that I could now listen to this album with a mostly objective ear. So, here goes…
Angel Dust is Faith No More’s fourth studio album (third major label), and their second with vocal wunderkind Mike Patton. I began listening to this band with Introduce Yourself, which boasted vocals from previous singer, Chuck Mosely. Now, I absolutely LOVED Introduce Yourself, and played it for whoever would listen. It was the sound of a fresh, young, and exciting band; a fresh, young, exciting band with a singer who couldn’t carry a tune in a sealed bucket. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved the record despite Chuck’s bleating with attitude, but it made it difficult for me to get others to hear what I heard in the band.
Well, as things go, Faith No More ended up kicking Chuck out of the band. Not for sucking as a vocalist, though. Nope. Chuck got himself kicked out for doing things like falling asleep… on stage… during concerts… Yeah, I wouldn’t want you in same band as I am either if you did that to me. Bye, Chuck!
When it came down to the next record, it seems the remaining members of the band pretty much had it written and recorded while they looked for a vocalist. Thanks to a demo tape heard by one of the band, they found Mike Patton, who wrote and recorded the lyrics for mega-blockbuster The Real Thing in about two weeks.
All of that leads us to Angel Dust. Angel Dust was the first record that Patton was really involved in writing with the band, and it was here that he began to help direct the band to a sound so cutting edge that they were way ahead of most of us in terms of what popular music could be. Faith No More were now so far ahead of that curve, many of us could barely keep up. I tried though, and I’ve been rewarded handsomely for it.
See, the Real Thing clicked with music audiences about a year after it was released, but it did click, and in a big way, eventually going platinum in that time span. The songs on the Real Thing were accessible, with an edge that just made them, and by extent the album, the cool thing of the moment. When a band that has struggled finally has that kind of success, they are faced with two options; either give the audience (and their record label) more of the same in hopes of continuing that success, or tell the record company to kiss off. Faith No More chose option number two. In fact, when Slash Records balked at releasing a record called Angel Dust, the band responded with the alternate title of Crack Hitler. Angel Dust it was…
So what do we get with Angel Dust? Honestly, we get a record that is not nearly as radio-friendly and accessible as the previous album, and that’s a good thing. From the opener, “Land of Sunshine”, to the ending cover of the Midnight Cowboy theme, Faith No More challenges you to open your mind and your ears and peer deep into the psychological sewer that’s a part of many of us. Plus, along the way, we’ll make a couple of side trips into the absurd.
Now, I’m certain a track-by-track analysis will not do this record justice. It’s better than that. However, I will touch on some highlights.
The opening song, “Land of Sunshine”, lets you know right away that Angel Dust is a far different beast than its predecessor. It starts off pretty normal, then the vocals and lyrics kick in, and you’re taken from what at first seems to be an uplifting message on toward a wall of dripping sarcasm and laughter. It takes a bit to get the joke, but “Sunshine” is a scathing swipe at how most of us view our golden years, reducing it to what they’ll really be… untold years of being zombified by late-night infomercials until our brains turn to goo and we die. Happy, ain’t it?
The third track of the record is “MidLife Crisis”, which has to be one of the most head stumping lead singles ever put out by a major label. Mike “Puffy” Bordin’s drum starts off with a slow, staccato polyrhythm that forms the spine of the song. The rest of the band join in, and things are kicking along just nicely. Mr. Patton’s vocals also fit into the song rather smoothly. It’s when you listen to what he is saying that things get interesting…
Go on and wring my neck
Like when a rag gets wet
A little discipline
For my pet genius
My head is like lettuce
Go on dig your thumbs in
I cannot stop giving
I’m thirty-something
Sense of security
Like pockets jingling
Midlife crisis…
Suck Ingenuity
Down through the family tree
Chorus:
You’re perfect yes it’s true
But without me you’re only you
Your menstruating heart
It ain’t bleedin’ enough for two
Sounds like a bowl full of cherries, doesn’t it?
Later, we get “Malpractice”, a piece of damaged art-metal driven by a military rhythm and a vocal performance teetering on the wrong side of insane…
The crowd roars
It’s deep and so unhealthy
The rest you know
I’ll feel the hands that felt me
Cold hands
Your hands
Cover my mouth
While I’m staring into bright lights
APPLAUSE
The crowd roars
The bloody hands are groping
The rest you know
Ten lovers violating
Cured
Discharged
Reach back inside
Knuckle white
Ruffle white
The crowd roars
They ruined and repaired me
The rest you know
The hands removed the bad thing
MIRACLE
Now, with the examples I’ve given, you may be asking “Why is this album so good?” From what I’ve let go thus far, it’s a fair question.
First, musically, the album is tight and varied. Each note, even the seemingly random ones, is perfectly placed, and played by a band who put poured their souls into art. You can HEAR the integrity in this record, and it’s that integrity that elevates Angel Dust onto a lofty pedestal, and makes even its disturbing moments good.
So what about non-disturbing moments? Well, there aren’t a lot of them on this record, but there is beauty to be had, as witnessed by “A Small Victory”. It was the second single and is easily the best song on the record. “RV” and “Kindergarten” are character portraits unto themselves. “RV” puts you in the trailer with its drunken, loser protagonist, and makes you wonder if everyone has a chance to turn out like that. “Kindergarten” revisits the theme of childhood and how you can’t go back to the safety and security of that time in your life, even if you desperately want or need to.
I know that those are scant reasons in the positive column, but just trust me. Go and listen to this record. Listen to it multiple times (at least four), and you will realize I’m not just talking out of my backside.
THAT’S when you’ll realize just how good Angel Dust is. You will get it and you will like it, but you won’t be able to fully articulate WHY you like it. You’ll just know that you do.
Auspicious start to the day thus far. I thought I had left the camera at the store, so I screwed around a home a bit before coming to get it, only to find that I had left it in the car overnight. *Sigh*
Not enough time to take a picture at home, so I might as well have left the camera at the store.
Beyond that, we have Pathfinder in the back of the store and D&D4E and Mosnsterpocalypse happening in the front. I'm not involved in ANY of those, so I can catch up on some work for the store and for some games.
Depending on what is going on at home tonight, I might work on some other game/blog related stuff.
Imagine, if you will, a land not too unlike our own. Yes, the land masses are different, but the humans there are pretty much the same as you or I.
It is a time of hardship and toil. A time when steel is new, and kingdoms are forged like irons in the flame. It is a time when we, as people, create borders… and alliances… and monuments to the gods above… only to have those gods come down in vessels of crystal and enslave us all.
The gods were not like we imagined. Instead of benevolent presences that brought all that is good, our gods were alien and inhuman. Our gods oppressed us and made us work the land until it was bled dry of resources. Our gods tainted our crops and our animals, making those things dangerous in their own right, filling us with fear and dread.
Until one day, one of us said “no more” and lashed out at one of our gods. Yes, the originator died, struck down not two moments after he snapped, but he had done the damage that we needed him to do. He had taken one of the gods with him, and that’s when we realized these creatures, these… As’kali… were not gods, but beings much like ourselves… More learned, and with different physiologies, but they were a people of sorts, and people can die…
We fought the As’kali for decades, not knowing that time really was our ally. For in the crystalline structures of our oppressors vessels lay the key to the power of our lands, and gave us our ability to wield it. The fragments of crystal that fell off their ships and war machines during battles lay in the fields of blood and bone, slowly absorbing the ambient energies of Tai’eres. Energies that, until then, we never knew about. Magic.
Different types of crystals created different sorceries, and we relentlessly wielded that power in our fight against the As’kali, until a band of our mightiest heroes took the fight into their main sky-fortress… and it all exploded in our skies.
The Rain of Shards killed thousands in its wake, reducing cities and nations to ruin. The As’kali were no more, but they had left their mark on Tai’eres. We are now just recovering…
Welcome to Tai’eres, the land of shards.
_______________________________________
This is an introduction to a fantasy heartbreaker world I came up with a few years back. Basically, I took the premise of Evernight (a Savage Worlds setting) and extrapolated it with different aliens doing the oppressing, and the end result of it all.
I threw the characters into the world pretty much cold turkey. They didn’t know much beyond their own little farm village, but they were full of adventure and willing curiosity. This group had stout fighters and sneakier archers. They even had a novice shardcaster with them. The group ran into dangerous animals such as Screamtoads and Spearcats, mercenaries working for would-be nobles, and even members of the Shatterers; a group dedicated to wiping out the As’kali influence on Tai’eres by any means necessary.
I ran this using a home-brew system of my own. Yes, it was incomplete, but it was complete enough to run the game for a time. The system has its warts, but it had a lot of good things going for it as well. I often find my mind wandering back to that system and that setting, and I do have plans to revisit Tai’eres… …if time allows.
Yes... those are dice. We own a game store. We sell a fair amount of dice. It seemed appropriate...
Another milestone has been achieved. Fifty days straight of doing this whole personal upgrade thing. In anticipated celebration, I busted out a new set of cuff links. Woo?!? Again, stuff like that excites only me.
Anyway, today we have a WH40K tourney at the store, and, if I remember, I'm taking some pictures to post later tonight/early tomorrow.
After the tournament is our HUGE World of Darkness game, which means I get to go home early, relax, and catch up on blogging content that doesn't show just clothing.
