I'd like to see them play Return of the Old Ones some day. I still don't understand what I'm hearing on the drums but I love it so much.

There he sounds better, but still there's something that bothers me on the vocals; it's the way he projects his voice to get higher notes. He doesn't sound as 'confident' as I would like to, his vibrato is quite shaky and the vocal lines are still a bit flat.

The music remains interesting with just a few issues in production (like the first video). It has an epic feeling to it that screams for a more powerful and skilled singer!

I think Shelton's voice is a perfect litmus test. If you don't love the aged wizard vocals (even when he was young!) then you're just not meant to be a fan. It's okay, there's plenty of other really good stuff out there!

Perhaps you'll never love his singing. But we fans do...I wouldn't want anyone else singing in that band! Well, Brian Patrick's cool I guess.

"Necropolis" is a cool tune but it seems to be kind of Manilla ROad's 'RUn to the Hills". One of the girls I shared a room with for MDF didn't seem to know any other songs by the band and kep drunkenly shouting that "They'd better play 'Necropolis' or else!!!" and stuff like that...and yeah, it seems they do play it at every damn show. It's a short one and I guess doesn't take much time out of a set, but I would prefer if they concentrated on other material. I don't like a band feeling obligated to play one or two "hits" every time they turn up...either as a musician or a fan.[/quote]

I know that sucks! Saw Maiden last fall and i already knew 15 minutes of it would be Run to the Hills, Number, and the Trooper. Staples that i could do without, well, except for Number of the Beast i HAD to hear Bruce sing that live. So i guess im part of my own problem.

Yeah, I guess I won't like it anytime soon. Just as an example of my style of preferred vocals, I like this guy (yes, I know the other bands where he sings)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IprP2Bdq4s

Necropolis is what three minutes long? If it crops up at every show and you'd rather it didn't, well, there's your cue to go take a piss. I would think bands are happy to know they have a couple staple songs that whole audience will like!

Well I mean, when you think of it that way, what's the point in doing anything?

Yeah, he's a good singer for sure. But that's a completely different sort of metal, you know? I see nothing amiss with appreciating both/multiple parts of the spectrum as far as singers go, in metal or otherwise.

Yeah, I know. For heavy/power metal in general terms I prefer powerful and overdramatic vocalists.

For other styles I take the context/intention and atmosphere into consideration. Aaron from MDB is not a gifted clean singer at all but his vocals work well within the band or Ihsahn's vocals in IX Equilibrium are a bit goofy but fits the presented body of work. Attila's vocals are usually very odd but he manages to make them work anyway.

I'm in agreement with the principle of everything you've said; that is, in fact, why I like Mark's singing so much.

Nice to see that we share the principles and only the tastes differ.

Talking about heavy/power singers, does someone know what's Jeff Scott Soto doing? I was listening Yngwie's Marching Out today and damn, he was really powerful! I mean, the very first shout in this song is incredible!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlSmms1LBFQ

Holy fucking shit. That stack of cash is $23 BILLION dollars. That motherfucker had 1.25% of Mexico's entire goddamn GDP just laying around in his house next to his lions.

I know. If he left it next to his panthers that would just be crazy.

Forgot to mention: I'm also in the 2 pm interview today club. Mine went pretty damn well and I should be hearing back tomorrow or Thursday to find out if I got that gig.

Count me in for this whole interview thing too. Don't know what day it's gonna be aside from it being next week and on a day where it's not snowing, but the director of the company called me back today and told me I'd be getting either an email or another call in the next couple days with all the specifics.

I know if I get good news, the first order of business will be making a beer run.

The job I'm up for pays well above minimum wage (at least $15/hr), so getting this would be kind of excellent.

Abominatrix is right, but he's being too nice about it. If you wankers don't start liking Shelton's voice soon, I'm going to have to bash you over the head with their entire discography of LPs! The point of Manilla Road is to be 'epic', 'atmospheric', etc., not powerful in the most common sense of the word. They're not bashing you over the head with shrieking and fast riffs, it's more of a contemplative style. If the Shark was super aggressive/over-the-top/"powerful" all the time it would ruin the whole point. Shark is perfect for this sort of music and if you don't like him, you probably shouldn't listen to epic heavy metal, which characteristically has more laid-back vocalists like this (Longings Past, Tales of Medusa, Upwards of Endtime).

What even is minimum wage these days? Isn't it up to like $9 an hour or something?

$7.25. Higher in some states, but that's the federal minimum.

Really that low huh. I guess maybe in Illinois it's higher caused I remember thinking damn that's high last time I heard what it was.

Edit: ok maybe not as high as I thought. $8.25 an hour here.

That drug lord house thing: wow, is this real? I don't think it's really 23 billions. Is there a news source other than Reddit ( )?

Snopes has an article about this (only the pics of the money, not the panthers and everything): http://www.snopes.com/photos/crime/drugmoney.asp
They say it's 205 millions USD. The pics of the golden guns, animals etc. are probably from something else. So, I'm calling this picture mashup as (mostly) fake for now.

Amen.

In addition to what Zodi said, in my state it's $8.70. Three months ago it was $8.25 before a bill was passed that raised it to its current rate on January 1st and then to $9.00 on January 1st of next year. I remember reading a study that said that if the minimum wage increased in accordance to inflation and increase in productivity over the years since 1968, it would have been nearly $22 in March 2011. It's kind of infuriating how worthless the minimum wage is today.

Hmm, say what? I don't know what you consider their "new" sound exactly (they've had a few transitions), but the last album of theirs I really enjoy is Am Universum from 13 years ago. I suppose you could be one of those who considers everything after their death metal period as "new"; in which case yes, you are of course a dirty philistine for disliking Elegy.

Right on the dot. I dunno, Nils Patrik Johansson (the example Kveldulfr was using) is awesome in Astral Doors, but Shelton is on another level. He's just got a lot of appeal and fits perfectly with MR. Maybe not with any other band, but I wouldn't want MR fronted by anyone else, it would lose the feeling and mood set by him combined with the music he has put his heart and soul into for 40 years.

It's still a SHITLOAD OF MONEY. A SHITLOAD OF MUH-NAAAAYYYY!!! A shitload of money! A shitload of money!

I bet you have a word document with this exact post, just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself

Yeah well there needs to be a substantial gap between skilled and unskilled labor. You shouldn't be able to go work at BK and make ~45,000 a year. If that were the case I would quit my job in a heart beat and me and the wife could come just shy of what I make now and only have to work 40 hours a week.

So what you're saying is that someone with skills has inherently more valuable lifetime? That his or her existence is inherently worth more than some's without education?

What the hell is BK? Burger King?

And if you could make the same working in a "BK" (assuming it's Burger King), you'd quit your job, and rather be on the receiving end of bitching, abuse and general rudeness, and have absolutely no say in to what you're supposed to do, and with an obligation to be polite at all times to whatever raging behemoths were on the other side of the counter? Your job must indeed suck. Quit before you hang yourself, being an office rodent must indeed suck. I'd personally keep my current job, even if I could make the same in McDonalds.

My real point being, skills in math are sometimes useful, especially if you want to make arguments like the one you made above. If the minimum wage is about 9 US$ an hour, and there are approximately 220 working days a year (yeah, that's in European socialism, and not the 453 days YOU obviously work every year...), with an 8 hour working day (as assumed by your 40 hours a week claim above), it actually factors to less than 16 000 US$ a year. Which is one fucking third of what you quoted as your income above. I guess your outrage can be contained a while longer, you think? No?

I agree. THANKS, OBAMA!

I'm pretty sure he meant Burger King. Unless he meant Beckwith & Kuffel Industrial Pumps, pump sales, pump service, pump parts, compressors, compressor parts, compressor service, Seattle.

No one making compressors should make a decent living. Filthy squeezers of things, they are!

BK is Burger King, yeah. The McyD's of Burger King.


Timely report: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/m ... html?hp=l4

I was doing my math based off of Subrick's post about how minimum wage should be around $22 an hour not the $9 that it is.





Yes BK is Burger King.



No I'm not devaluing someone else's existence, just saying that some one, who say works at BK, should not make as much as I do. And for good reason, I have a skill. People who go to college or are in the trades deserve to make a higher wage than those who are just plain working fast food or retail or whatever. (Now days in this economy and what not things have changed and things are different. Jobs like these were never meant for people in their 40's with masters degrees for example.) Raising the wages would not solve the problems it would only raise inflation. If minimum wage was $22/hour then gas would probably be like $10/gallon or something crazy like that.



I did a quick calculation of $22/hour X 40 hours a week X 52 weeks a year hence my squiggley before the 45,000 (~45,000)



Yes my job sucks. I deal with pretty much that on a daily basis. It just tends to be with chefs who think they own the world. Or any other manner of stupid person I encounter through out my day.

"Skilled labor" is kind of an oxymoron in this country. You spend 4+ years going tens of thousands of dollars in debt on student loans for the privilege of being allowed to go tens of thousands of dollars more into debt for 2+ more years to get a master's degree to show the world you learned some skills the world should have taught you 5+ years earlier. Then that business you wanted to apply to decides to hire the much more experienced 45-year-old mother who just re-entered the workforce to make some money to help her kids go through the same student loan bullshit.


I need more beer. Also, I'm bitter because Battlefield 4's best servers are all empty now.

Everyone says that raising the minimum wage drives up inflation yet prices of things go up regardless of whether there was an increase of a minimum or not. People tried to tell me that businesses wouldn't be able to handle raising the minimum to $10 and would need to lay people off and cut hours.

This graph shows the unemployment rate with the real minimum wage (in dollars today). There isn't any evidence that suggest raising the minimum wage cuts jobs. My bosses have 3 cars each and have huge houses. I don't think raising the minimum wage from 7.25 to 8 (I live in NY state) will make a dent in what they make. And if you think about it, they raise it every few or so year. within that period of time a normal worker who works minimum wage would get several raises would they not? So to say that raising the minimum wage affects inflation/price of products is really fucking stupid and its completely false.

People need a living wage. Not everyone can go to college or get the skills for another job because some people get tied up in really shitty situations where they have to support people and themselves.

The problem with raising minimum wage is that corporations aren't going to willingly cut back their profits, so they'll just all raise prices to compensate. That is assuming you don't prevent such practices in legislation obviously.

I'm not saying raising it $2 or 3 would drive up inflation, I'm saying more than doubling it (in some states it would be triple almost. Again basing this off of the $22/hour thing from subrick) would. And yes it's not fair that everyone doesn't earn a livable wage and that some people catch a shitty hand in life but ideally that's what welfare is for. Obviously that system is being aped senseless on a daily basis but in theory it's supposed to help those who need it. The whole American system needs an overhaul really.

@cubed: skilled labour doesn't necessarily mean 7 years of college and a butt ton of debt. I'm in the trades, have no student debt and make more than most people who do go to college. There's actually a handful of guys at my work who have degrees but don't use them because they make more doing what we do.

Raising the minimum wage is really only a problem if it goes up by leaps and bounds at a time. Raising it from $7.25 to $8 wouldn't be that big of a deal. A lot of states already have minimum wages higher than that. Doubling it to $15 or higher (which some municipalities are doing) is when you would start having problems. The thing is, if we are going to raise the wage we really should be doing it now. The American economy on average has some sort of mini-downturn every six or seven years, and it would be a really bad idea to raise the cost of hiring workers at a time when businesses would already be losing money. Now is the time to do it (and you might as well index it to inflation so it stays steady too).


It's amusing how many economists of all stripes have supported a universal minimum income for all people, not just workers; and yet how many people ignore them. Even alleged welfare haters like Friedman and Hayek supported it in some form or another.