Carl Begai

A couple weeks ago I was trolling YouTube in search of pre-work amusement and stumbled upon Daughtry’s acoustic rendition of Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’. While on the page – realizing that a good song is a good song in spite of my disdain for most things techno – I spotted a thumbnail claiming “Lady Gaga Performs Live In The Studio.” Having already seen footage of Ms. Bad Hair Month Germanotta doing up ‘Poker Face’ live on piano in classic Tori Amos fashion I was intrigued. Alas, it was the original techno version performed in some dinky European morning show studio that probably doubles as a dentist’s office after 9:00am, but she did indeed pull it off live and proved she has the chops.

I scrolled through the comments on the page, knowing full well the keyboard warriors lurking about flaming one another are always good for a laugh. I came upon an entry that read as follows:

“When she’s (performing) live I hate her voice! It’s just not what I’m used to when I listen to her songs on the radio.”
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I’ve been planning to do a Retro Fit of Transcendence for quite some time, as it’s easily in my Top 5 Metal Albums You Need To Own Or Get Out Of My Yard chart, but with the tragic death of frontman Midnight (real name John Patrick McDonald Jr.) on July 8th , 2009 it’s become a tribute to greatness. This would still read as a gushing letter of fanboyship if Midnight was with us, though, because Transcendence was an album that took everything I thought I knew about guitar / vocal / prog shred at the time and twisted it sideways. The band wasn’t being overly experimental or increasingly off-the-wall compared to their self-titled debut from ’86; there was just more of everything. Big, open air production (it could have done with more bottom-end, but them’s small potatoes), twin guitar leads for miles backed by insane shred-ability that never fell into the future Dream Theater trap of being too damn technically proficient for its own good, ballsy and unique song arrangements, and a vocal performance that remains unmatched within the genre. (continue reading…)