Mastodon @ The Fox Theater, Boulder, CO

The genre of "Heavy Metal" music and it's exceedingly difficult to distinguish sub genres--

Avant-garde metal - Black metal - Death metal - Doom metal - Glam metal - Gothic metal - Groove metal - Power metal
Progressive metal - Speed metal - Stoner metal - Symphonic metal - Thrash metal - Viking metal Alternative metal - Christian metal - Crust punk - Drone metal - Folk metal - Funk metal - Grindcore - Grunge - Industrial metal - Metalcore - Neo-classical metal - Nu metal - Post-metal - Rap metal - Sludge metal

has always been somewhat humorous to me... "Viking Metal" are you kidding me? However, heavy metal is a legitimate style of music that is appreciated all over the world. It's thunderous power chords bleeding out of skyscraper-tall maaaashall stacks matched with super-human drumming prowess and lyrical content that effortlessly deals with delicate subjects such as devil worship, murder, blood, and riding your trusty steed to save a fair maiden from the sword wielding dragon.... uh, where was I... oh yeah--the music is loved by angst filled, pimply faced teens from Colorado to Croatia and everywhere in-between. Perfect example: Kansas.

Well, I kind of missed out on all that (too bad, right?) Though, I guess had a little metal in my soul, after all, here is the first band I ever saw live:

Until recently, Metallica's "Black Album" was the closest I came to listening to metal until the fateful day about 4 years ago when my good friend, Toxby (QDRO specialist and champion of metal) took me on the "metal ride" that changed my life. OK... well it didn't exactly change my life but it certainly changed the way I thought of the style of music.

As we were heading down c-470 to a nondescript bar in a nondescript area of suburban hell, aka, Highlands Ranch, Toxby blasted Mastodon's "Leviathan". HOLY SH*T! I heard 30 seconds of it and I was enthralled. I thought to myself, The drumming! the songs! no male falsetto vocals! even the artwork was cool! Who are these guys and where did they come from? Mastodon was my gateway drug into the realm of metal music...

...I got my fix last night at The Fox Theater in Boulder.

I was going to attempt to write a review of the show, but I just found this review in the Westword and I can't see a way that I can write it any better myself. However, I do have a funny story from backstage. Shoot me a comment/email if you want to hear about it.

For those of you who don't know Mr. Davis

He's my BFF and he has an awesome blog at http://deepjunk.blogspot.com/

There is a TON of content there and some incredible links to music. Like he said to me when I was bitching about how much information he has on the blog, "Yeah, well you'll love me when you're stuck in an airport!"

Back to a (somewhat) normal life

Top of Beaver Creek ski resort

Damn,

This blogging stuff can be a pain in the ass to keep up with but I am motivated to keep this going. Now that my travels are over (for the time being) I'm going to shift the content of the blog over to the music side of things, most likely interspersed with some beautiful nature pics of snowboarding and hiking in Colorado. After all, there's not much better than a beautiful summer day in the Colorado mountains, except perhaps a beautiful winter day!

"Asssspen: Where the beer flows like wine and the beautiful women flock instinctively like the salmon of Capistrano"

Victor and I made our way up to Beaver Creek ski resort last Monday for some awesome late season snowboarding. We were fortunate to have a "bluebird" day following a weekend of snowstorms that dumped close to 40" of snow. After a abnormally dry January, February, and early March in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, we got hammered with storm after storm in mid-to-late March, making for epic late season pow-pow, brah! Too bad the Texas gapers on spring break were crowding my corduroy and poaching my tree lines. (Tongue firmly implanted in cheek)

By the way, I have a run named after me at Beaver Creek. "Damon's Trees" are not for the faint of heart or those afraid of deep pow turns and tight tree lines. I'll provide you with a guided tour in exchange for some pulled pork and a tall P.B.R. at Moe's BBQ in Vail.

On the way back to Denver, Victor got a request from our mutual friend Tim Beichley to find a particular t-shirt. Tim, who is a Denver native but now lives in Anchorage, Alaska, had a faint memory of going to a liquor store in Beaver Creek and finding some pretty funny shirts that were cleverly named after the liquor store that contained them. "Beaverliquor" is every Texas fratboys dream t-shirt shop, combining the "coolness factor" of a t-shirt that came from a Colorado ski town and the bathroom humor that a sixth grader appreciates. Vic and I searched around Beaver Creek for the liquor store for 15 minutes or so until we called Tim to find us directions on the interweb. We found the shop, looked around for the t-shirt Tim wanted until I saw the huge sign hanging on the wall that said "find our shirts on line at www.beaverliquors.com" Sweet. Thanks, Tim.

Today, I am spending time working on the "business" end of the Radiohead tribute show that I am organizing for May 29th at The Oriental Theater. I hope to keep the blog updated to provide a glimpse as to the inner workings of putting together a show of this magnitude. I hope it will serve me well as a journal of sorts for posterity.

I'll be heading to The Fox Theater in Boulder tomorrow for a special engagement with MASTODON! They will be performing "Crack The Skye" in it's entirety. Maybe I'll try my hand at a review of the show. For those who don't know, now you do:

(Sorry about the lame intro in the beginning)