No Offense Live Report (22/05/2009 @ Mike's Irish Bar)

Well, yes, in fact I managed to go! After around 5 Lives, I managed to go watch Flexxy and company on a humid Friday, finally! I had listened to No Offense's recorded live performances and yes, I thought they were pretty decent (it's a hesitation to say any more, that comes with any band doing covers), but now I have revised my opinion: they are good and not just "hey, they're my friends (well, Flexxy is) - they're OK". No, I mean actually, very pleasantly good.

They played a number of interesting covers, "Give It Away" (which always makes me appreciate Flexxy's voice range), "Unbelievable" AND Gazette's "Cockroach" among them and I believe the whole band is deserving of congratulations, for doing the songs justice. They also played two of their own songs, "A Fresh Start" and "One Step Forward", the first of which I liked very much, in and of itself, while the second brought to mind the music from the fictional band, Trip Cyclone, in the game "Shivers II" (one of the best soundtracks ever in a game, if you like classic rock).

At any rate, here's the photos from that night.

Presenting

No Offense

Vlassis "FlexXxible" Tsiamas
(Vocals)

Haris Pandazis
(Bass)


Panayiotis Kolidas
(Guitar)


Vassilis Nikolis
(Drums)


You know, I generally sort Flexxy under
"depressed", or at least, potentially so...

...but whenever he is on stage
(both when I saw them live and
in videos)...

...he seems to forget himself.

The whole band was perfectly focused...

...not only keeping their building momentum...


...but also augmenting it as they went.


As to the ever-fearful question: "were there
enough people?"...

...I believe this answers it (in part - there were
many more on the other side but taking
wide pictures is a pain in there).

Not to mention some familiar faces
(Velvet Vortex)...

...John and NickUnknown (back from Scotland
for Summer Break). There were also Raziel,
Luna (far left, here), Nickmer, Darkside_Blues
and Cavu (Ergo Proxy sleeped us off, yet
again).




"Give it away, give it away, give it away now...!"



I have a small obsession with
photographing drummers...

...because they invariably give me
a hard time (Chiroto has been
by far the worst).


After No Offense concluded, we ordered beers
and Kamikaze Cocktail, which...

...gave Darkside_Blues the
opportunity to test his...
suction skills (you had it
coming bro)!

I also took a couple of videos ("Cockroach" and "One Step Forward"), but they are huge and I have a hard time uploading them. However, I have given them to Flexxy, so he should get off his ass and upload them himself, yeah?! Well, at any rate, I want to congratulate the guys and thank Flexxy for dedicating "Unbelievable " to me. It did seem a bit weird to anyone who has not been exposed to the company's inside jokes but so long as I understood, alles ist OK.

For myself, I would like to hear more of No Offense's original songs (which, as they say in their page, they are currently working on), but a slight suspicion I have about their next covers (not telling), has me waiting for their coming live performances.

Before I go, here are a video featuring Trip Cyclone's (whom I mentioned earlier) "Was I Even There" and another featuring the remix from the Shivers I game music.





Strangely enough, both I found were edited with Kingdom Hearts footage.

Rock 'n' Roll Children,

Speedgrapher

June 2009 Events

Here's a couple of things that might interest you, which recently came to my attention:

First-off, Bare Infinity, an amazing Greek Metal band, which has passed through much turmoil since its formation, in 2003, will be playing at 8Ball in Salonika on the 12th and at Sfendona (22, Alexandras Ave.) in Athens, on the 19th. What makes this band so amazing (to me), is that they sound like a healthy mix of Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica and Sirenia, all of which are very dear to my heart. Of course, one would argue that you could always listen to those other bands, but the fact is, simply, Bare Infinity are good, really, really good!

When I first stumbled upon them, I started listening to their first album (Always Forever) medley on MySpace and I thought they were probably Finnish or Norwegian; lo and behold, looking at the profile details, they were Greek! I was amazed that a Greek Metal band could put out such incredible quality, both in sound and vocals (I find very annoying the fact that many Greek bands who sing English lyrics, have blatant accents - not so here, not by a longshot). Needless to say, the lyrics are nothing short of great.

On a personal trivia note, I thought their drummer, George, looked oddly familiar and indeed, I had met him years ago, during my Live-Action Role-Playing days. I will be attending their Athens Live with a 99% probablility and I believe that anyone who holds Melodic & Symphonic Metal close to their hearts, should as well.

As a secondary note, [room302] of ex-Ordre de Ciel and ex-Le Ciel, is organizing a Video Game Music Party at Texas Necropolis (corner of Themistokleous & Gamvetta) on the 5th of June, with a new team (?) called Save Point. The event will feature Video Game Music (and you can bet that there will be a lot of Silent Hill, if the past is any indication), as well as a Video Game RolePlay Contest, where people are invited to dress as their favorite game characters and win prizes.

That's all for now - c' ya,

Speedgrapher

No Offense Live @ Rodeo (03/05/2009)

It was high time I posted something here - with all the craziness (mostly good and a few drops of bad) in my life right now, it is all I can do to keep my work and absolute necessary blog posts up to date. However, it would not feel right NOT to announce this here.

A friend from the immensely active Japanese community of Athens, Vlassis "FlexXxible" Tsiamas, aka Flexxy (or Fle-chan, when we want to get on his nerves - a pretty common occurrence) and his band, No Offense, will be doing their first big gig after getting back together again, at the Rodeo Live Club, on the 3rd of May. The evening will be split between three bands in total, the other two being The Virgin Steve and Accidents Happen.

I have not managed to attend one of No Offense's lives yet but watching some of their live video recordings and often witnessing Flexxy singing, I can say pretty confidently that they got their mojo right. As far as I know, at the moment they are focusing on covers from early millennium alternative-indie music, although as I have been informed, they plan on doing "Cockroach" from the Japanese band, The GazettE. Here's what the original sounds like:

Hopefully, I will be there to cover the whole thing with my camera and then report it here.

Cheerio,

Speedgrapher

Shiverspine Live Report (19/03/2009 @ AN Club)

My acquaintance with Shiverspine goes back to the original parties at KABATZA and I originally met Freaking Candy Freak at the first cosplay there, on the 9th of March 2008 (although I had no idea who that cool Gaara was at the time). Over the next weeks I became acquainted with two other members of the band, Ploutonas and Chiroto, while FCF kept amazing people with her cosplays, such as Death Note's L (most faithful rendition that I have seen to date). I believe I met their singer, Jay Tegg, during the Underworld season of Japanese events but I am not entirely sure.

However, no matter how many times they told me they would be doing a live gig and no matter how many times I said I would (and really wanted to) go, something always came up and I ended up breaking my promise. Other people would tell me how the live was and I could assume a few things about the band's stage presence, from the way they dressed every time I met them, but still, I had not seen them on stage and felt rather bad about it.

That is why, when I learned of their gig on the 19th of March, I decided not to say anything at all: if I could make it, all was well, if not, I wouldn' t be seen as bullshitting them for the n-th time. As it turned out, I managed to go, along with a good company of friends, Didi, Flexxy, Ed Elric, Louiza, Milk, Xander and of course, Kyoshiro, among them. Kyoshiro even brought the equipment to film their live at AN Club. Hence, camera in hand and half-blinded by their psychedelic lights, I started trolling around and taking pictures.

I finally realized how easy it had been to take pictures until then, when my subjects' movements were restricted to just walking around and I could rely on a powerful flash to make up for the lens's speed. However, as you will see further on, the pictures at the live were really worth it without the flash. That is why, of the total 86 pictures taken, I have chosen only 40 and among those, some who are not "quite right" but rather, "interesting". Here we go then:

Here's the first one, with flash...

...not bad, not really but...

...I don't think it compares!

Chiroto was the one I took (and rejected) the most photos of...
It was so hard to catch him somewhat clearly.

Jay Tegg and Freaking Candy Freak. If you wonder
why she features most prominently in this post...

...she was the most stationary and I could therefore
get the most clear shots out of her!

This is the clearest one I have of Chiroto but really,
the lack of lighting takes away all the feel.

Photographically waaaay wrong...

...artistically interesting.

Again, one of the most clear ones of Ploutonas
(without flash).

This is definitively the clearest shot of Jay Tegg
I could get (guy was headbanging so hard!).

There: now this was an all too common occurrence
but I still like the psychedelic look of this one.

The band's bassist (Nick)
proved nigh on impossible to photograph during
the live and not have him look like Cousin It.

Kyoshiro, ever making faces,
here with Full Metal...

...Milk and KrizDaMan!

Finally, the whole band crystal clear, after the gig.

Shiverspine's music is a very particular mix, which I am kind of inadequate to describe, but I have liked their sound ever since I listened to a couple of songs they had posted on their MySpace. Harshness and melody mingle to make a sort of distorted poetry (which yes, does send shivers up one's spine) but as usual, much of that was lost to me because I was, well, shooting like crazy. Congratulations guys and gal!

Their next gig will take place on the 12th of April. Read below for more details:


Cheers,

Speedgrapher