If you peruse this website carefully,
you'll notice that I have interviewed at least more than five very
successful musicians/bands that have created timeless music, like
Digitalism, Imagine Dragons, Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony, Mac Miller, Steve
Aoki and others. So it has been said by wise elders in the industry
that this writer understands what good music is. That's probably why,
according to this website, I'm rich!
This website lies so bad that not only does it lack an ass, it's pants are very much on fire.
With this on the brain we ponder, why
listen to Pyncher? Who are they? What do they want? How do they
sound? Should we fear them? I was terrified of what would happen, if
my ears didn't experience Pyncher. You just can't sit around in your
house, all alone, listening to bands like The Misfits, Agent Orange,
The Cramps, Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's, Sonic Youth, and Black Market
Baby. It's demoralizing.
Pyncher, keeping it real.
One must experience either new music,
or inevitable entropy. That's the truth. I knew a guy once that just
listened to old Soundgarden albums until he morphed into a stained, slightly damaged Styrofoam litter bucket full of dented cans of Coors Lite
beer. It was disconcerting. Personal evolution means answering your
email to hear more mighty musical majesty, at least for me. New music
helps us transcend old consciousness.
Pyncher rocks.
"Dirty Feet," a brand new
single by Pyncher that they will release this Friday, reminds me of The Beatles. Woah! Calm down! What I
mean is that the reason we keep listening to that band is because
they had figured out a killer formula: each song The Beatles made is
actually three songs. That was their secret. Pyncher utilizes that
same power in their new, ferocious single that is an audio odyssey
worthy of the ears of Oddyseus.
Like a fine film with three acts,
"Dirty Feet" goes beyond the usual formula to tell a story.
The song starts fast with a howl that could make Alan Ginsberg happy,
introduces background feedback throbbing with sonic power,
electrifies with drippy, surf-worthy guitar licks that would make
Dick Dale cry, and suddenly stops to cruise across semi-familiar
landscapes of fast audio adventure, only to transform again, evolving into
a final crescendo worth 4 mintues and 23 seconds of your good time.
Pyncher is a solid rock band from
Manchester in the United Kingdom, where Britain comes from. I had the
honor of getting some words from the band about their new tour de
force single. "I write the main foundation of each song,"
says Sam, who plays guitar and supplies vocals. "Harvey plays
lead guitar, Jack plays drums, and Britt bass." Time and work
went into this creation. "I wrote the riff in July and it sat
there over the summer. Everything else I did just before we had a
rehearsal."
"Then as we do with most of our
songs, Harvey, Britt and Jack added their bits. I had the vocals done
for the verse but the chorus was a matter of trying new things in
rehearsal until I got what I wanted." This craftsmanship shows.
Epic songs have layers hiding dimensions. "I started the lyrics
with a story in mind, but I don't know what's happened to that.
There's a story somewhere in the song. I'm not too sure about the
meaning."
Music is personal, even for the
listener. It's OK to hear a song and decide it's meaning is different
for you than it is for others. Sam knows. "I like to write with
ambiguity as I intend on people all having different ideas of what
they could mean. More often than not, the music comes first and then
I'll take lots of listens to the demo or recording before the lyrics
are there."
"Dirty Feet" will please fans
of Pyncher that have been looking forward to a new single which has
everything we enjoy about the music they play. It's hard to earn the
mad skills necessary to be damn good. Harder still to combine so much
genius properly into one audio creation that features them all. "A couple of our
songs are written around some lyrics I've got and that's always a bit
harder for me, but fun." Sounds awesome to all of us. Play it
again, Sam.
With millions of megabytes of music
available online to everyone, forever, how do you pick a good band
without wasting valuable keystrokes? Look up Violette Records, where
musicians like Tigers & Flies are making music with heart, soul
and originality.
The band known as Tigers & Flies are Arthur Arnold,
on guitars and vocals, Eddie Wigin doing bass guitar and vocals,
Arvin Johnson performing drums and backing vocals, Matteo Fernandes
playing trumpet and flugel, plus Risha Alimchandani on trombone and
Harry Badger handling the saxophone. Together they are a band
searching for something fresh in pop music, using their personal
musical individuality to do it.
Photography by Ellie Rankin.
"Among Everything Else,"
their latest sensational creation, has been compared to everything
from the Gang of Four, XTC, The Velvet Underground and Factory. The
fact is definitions can fail since every play of this album offers
more to the listener's ear than what has been heard before. Although
the work won't be released on vinyl and digital formats until
November 12, some fortunate individuals have had access to the album, thanks
to Violette Records. How to describe it?
After playing this album at full blast
on my Creative iRoar (cheap plug) many times all I can tell you is miracles can
happen, you just have to believe in checking your email and listening
to new musicians. Trust your ears and instincts. Modern music can be
boring. Too much repetition. Not enough innovation. "Among
Everything Else," is modern originality, not boring mediocrity.
Without giving away all of the
surprises, Tigers & Flies created something worth saving in a jar
for a few million years, to play later for future generations and
possible extraterrestrials. Ten songs telling a tale, so what's the
story? The first song, "Night Time Mood," summons a
sensation similar to Richard Hell and the 1970's post-punk band
Television, blending delicious organic string acoustics with a rough
bass guitars and fun progressive drumbeats.
After that fast takeoff "Among
Everything Else" soars, entertaining you with "Ben," a
nice song featuring haunting vocals, evocative guitar licks and an
overall beat reminding one of early Paul McCartney or modern popular
indy rock, thanks to it's timeless composition. Maybe I've been
listening to too much music and taking it personally. Perhaps, but
"Ben" is telling a story about growing up and falling in
love with somebody. It could be you. Maybe it's both of us.
There are more songs worth listening to
as much as typing about, so I'll finish it off by thanking the band
for, among other features, wisely using the saxophone and trumpets to
maximum effect. From late 70's era Gerry Rafferty's legendary hit single "Baker Street"
to modern successful punk/ska groups like Operation Ivy or NOFX,
brass instrumentals are best used with great care. This band
did so, and the album is better for it. Please buy this record before
supply and demand makes it cost one million dollars. It's worth it.
Extreme, loving, close attention was
paid to the legendary shield of Captain America in the Disney series
The Falcon and Winter Soldier. It was such a big deal. Who
would inherit the legacy? Who would take up the mantle? It seems so
emotional, so meaningful, except that...it's not Captain America's
real shield.
SPOILER ALERT!
If you haven't seen The Falcon and
Winter Soldier or Loki, please do, they are very worth
watching. Having grown up reading Marvel comics, I appreciate every
detail the writers put in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
films. It's like watching sequels to Iron Man, The Avengers
and Captain America. I am about to give away many secrets and
plotlines, so don't read any more of this if you aren't caught up and
don't want to know.
THE REAL SHIELD
In the original Captain America
his shield is given to him by Tony Stark's father. It's a silver disc
made of concentric circles. There is a star in the middle.There are
no gaps or black symbols. The star in the middle is basic. It's made
entirely of vibranium.There are no lines bisecting the circles. No
strange, black, trapezoids along the lines. Within the stars there
are no coffin-shaped designs. Just a star, a circle, and radiating,
circular lines. It was destroyed by Thanos in Avengers Endgame.
Look closely.
THE REAL, REAL SHIELD
In the Marvel comic books (Earth-616)
Captain America's shield is an admixture of vibranium and admantium.
Vibranium absorbs impacts and is invulnerable because the force is
redirected by the metal. Admantium is just damn hard, but like any
tough metal if you hit it rough enough, it cracks.
In the movies the real reason Captain
America's shield is destroyed by Thanos is because The Mad Titan's
impacts were so devastating Captain America's pure vibranium shield
couldn't redirect the force, so it shattered from the vibrations.
That's why Black Panther is so badass. His vibranium outfit absorbs
hits until he redirects the force into a blast. In the comics Captain
America's vibranium/admantium shield is destroyed because of The
Infinity Gauntlet, not a sword made of uru.
Ah, the good old days...
THE IRON MAN SHIELD
Throughout the Iron Man films
there is a variant of the shield that shows up on occasion. You keep
seeing it throughout the films. Something important to remember is
that after Captain America ended up frozen in Antarctica, research
continued. Stark's father certainly kept going with is ideas, and
given the amazing abilities of Iron Man's armor thanks to nanotech,
there are so many possibilities. They keep showing us this other
shield for a reason.
Probably not a coincidence.
If Captain America had ditched the
vibranium shield and asked Tony Stark to design a new shield, built
to withstand Thanos and utilize all the technology and innovation
Iron Man made use of, what would that shield be like? In both
AvengersInfinity War and Endgame, Iron Man uses
a shield. The first is nanotech. The second is some sort of energy
field. This is an important detail. After Captain America debriefs
Stark, the inventor could give him a shield that is prepared to take
on Thanos and more.
THE FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER
SHIELD
At the end of Avengers Infinity War,
an old Captain America shows up after a younger one takes off to the
past to return the Infinity Stones. We are not shown this adventure.
It is presumed that the stones were returned. So we have no idea what
really happened after young Captain America took off and came back.
Notice the gaps in the groove.
Assuming he isn't a Skrull or variant,
this Captain America gives Falcon a shield. Everyone is cool with
this. It's unusual, when you think about it. The real shield was just
destroyed by Thanos. Where did this one come from? Since we just
watched Thor steal a Mjionor hammer from the past, this new shield
was assumed to come from the "normal" past. It didn't.
There's another problem. Captain
America was returning Thor's hammer. So, isn't taking a shield from
the past bad if we have to return important, iconic, unique
artifacts like Captain America's shield and Thor's hammer? So this
older version of the hero is a variant from an alternate reality,
right? And Loki taught us variants aren't always good things. As soon
as that new shield was handed over to Falcon, Hulk should have
intervened, considering the advice he just gave.
Something to remember is that this
older version isn't dead. He's out there, somewhere. Is he in the
same dimension as Falcon and Winter Soldier? Did he return to an
alternate reality? Is he still talking to Hulk, or any of the
characters? We don't know. Watching a meeting between old Captain
America and his younger self would have been incredible, and the
conversation would have had profound effects on the MCU.
Obvious differences.
THE DIFFERENCES
Having personally done film before, I
can assure you a lot of attention is paid to making sure everything
in the last shot matched the next one. If my character hands you a
Rossi .357 magnum revolver, and in the next scene you are holding a
.45 Springfield semiautomatic pistol, that's a problem. Observing
viewers will notice the difference.
Hulk warns Captain America about
traveling back in time and creating new realities. He describes them
as, "nasty." A warning is given about returning the stones
to the exact places they were left. However, Loki informs us that
when an Infinity Stone is displaced, a new reality results. When
Captain America chose to stay behind all new possibilities, as well
as problems, surfaced. He didn't even return the way he was expected
to.
Now, really think about what just
happened. Captain America's return is practically a punch line. "Don't
screw up," Hulk warns him, and The First Avenger returns, very old. Looks like somebody screwed up, bad. Remember,
when The Ancient One showed Hulk the problems of an alternate
timeline, it is presented as an ominous, dark cut branching out from
the original. Obviously, this is intended to show us how terrible
these places are.
Instead of showing up in the time
machine, he is just there, sitting on a bench by a lake. Captain
America gives a shield to Falcon. After watching Loki it's important
that this person giving his symbol away could be just a variant of
Captain America. He didn't return via the machine. He just appeared.
Out of the hundreds of others that exist in the multiverse, hopefully
this character didn't return with a different agenda and a new piece
of equipment.
This shield is vastly different than
the one Captain America just lost to Thanos. The new one has a black
line bisecting the inside white/silver circle of the shield. Black
symbols the shape of trapezoids break up the line. The star symbol
inside the blue of the shield has coffin shaped designs inside the
arms of the star. There is another symbol inside the center of the
star. This new shield seems designed to open up, somehow. The
trapezoid symbols could be part of a hatch.
Not the old one at all.
Since we saw Agent Carter getting
arrested in the background of Loki, something is probably going on
behind the scenes. The audience is told that The Avengers were
supposed to do what they used time travel to do. When young Captain
America is replaced by an older one with a different shield, nobody
notices because of the sweet, sad music and feelings, despite the
fact that Hulk's advice was obviously just ignored.
LOKI AND KANG THE CONQUEROR
At the end of Loki it is revealed that
Kang did, and always has, won. The Time Variance Authority could have
existed the entire time The Avengers films were happening, and
we wouldn't have noticed since the audience has been told Kang allows
the time travel heist to happen. Why wouldn't he? It's how the
Conqueror probably conquered.
Since the effects of Kang's supremacy
are immediately felt throughout time (at the end of Loki the statues
within the TVA change, reflecting Kang's eternal supremacy) it's easy
to see why a Captain America leaving, and then a different, older one
with a strange shield showing up is a bad sign.
Look at this all from Kang's
perspective. Thanos is a rival. The Avengers are your enemies. How is
the playing field looking like by the end of the films?
If you are going to conquer a realm,
the best bet is to get that realm to fight itself, slaughter the
survivors and sweep once the civil war is over. Thanos is gone from
one timeline and dead two times. His army is obliterated. Asgard is
destroyed, Loki is dead, Thor has left Earth and been replaced by a
person who deserted their post once and even betrayed Thor for money.
The populace of Asgard is also decimated. No Odin either, so his
advice won't help.
The bad new shield?
Tony Stark, the only technical genius
that might understand how to defeat Kang, is dead. Hulk's arm is
shriveled. Black Widow is dead. Captain America is a geriatric
octogenarian. The Vision, an immortal machine man privy to the
greatest secrets of two of the most intelligent minds Earth had to
offer, is also dead. From Kang's perspective, killing The Vision
would be very important. There is no team of mighty superheroes to
stop him. If the circle and the trapezoid represent his supremacy,
the five coffin shapes within the shield may as well be for his
potential adversaries. No wonder he won.
Another fact is that in the comics,
Kang just can't fight Thanos. The latter is too powerful for the
former to combat directly, and Thanos is smart enough to figure out
just about every plan or technology Kang could use. The one weapon
the Conqueror had (aside from surprise) was time, and he used it on
Thanos to win.
GOOD OLD CAPTAIN AMERICA
When Captain America went back to the
past and stayed there, he didn't just sit around and keep his mouth
shut. He didn't just have to stones, he had Thor's hammer. The events
surrounding his adventure to return all that could easily be the plot
for an entire series. Since he planned on staying in the past, his
plan probably included preparing it for the future. This meant
telling his story.
Think of all the things he knew, from
how his vibranium shield would be destroyed by Thanos, to The Snap
that killed half of all life in the universe, to Loki's invasion of
New York City, Bucky's fate, how to stop Hitler, the destruction of
Asgard...everything. Since time was on his side (where he went, Tony
Stark had not even been born yet) he and the people Captain America
warned had plenty of time to prepare. It's annoying that we don't
know if he came from the past, or another timeline.
If he stayed in the same past as
Falcon, doesn't that mean there were two Captain America's? Where was
this other one hiding out? Was one frozen solid while the Captain
America from the future was talking? Did they just keep frozen
Captain America on ice, and he's in Antarctica while future Captain
America is handing his shield to Falcon? What a headache. It gets
worse when you consider that old Captain America could actually be
one from a different reality. With all that in mind...what's in that
other shield he brought back from the past?
Still alive? An old advisor, or frozen hero?
Remember, this man is an epic
superhero. If he could go back in time and bend/break the rules to
warn everyone and save the lives of billions, including his personal
friends like Tony Stark and Black Widow, he would. The older Cap
could have come from a happy, benevolent utopia where everything
worked out for the best. From his perspective, the timeline he came
back to could have been a wrong one.
CAPTAIN AMERICA...ON ICE!
By the way, it's worth noting that
right now, in the MCU...a young Captain America is frozen in
Antarctica. What? If he went back in the past to be with his girl,
the other one is probably not around. Why would his girlfriend want
to be with two men? Leaving the other one on ice until they thaw him
out later would make sense. He even has a vibranium shield, which is
why future Captain America didn't come back with that. He returned
with something better.
THEORIES
To understand the future let's look at
the past. Black Panther's vibranium armor stores up kinetic energy
and then releases it. We have yet to see the new shield take a really
hard hit. Since Thanos hit the other one so hard to shatter it,
channeling that energy into a blast to whup the ass Thanos sits on
makes sense. Iron Man also creates an energy shield at one point.
Maybe the other Captain America shield does that now.
Another is that Tony Stark left a
hologram that talks to everyone after he's dead in Avengers
Endgame. Putting a hologram like that in the shield to warn
everyone about Kang would be a great idea. At the right time, with
the right trigger, he could pop out and tell the future about what
the past figured out.
The good old shield.
That shield has a lot of room, and Tony
Stark eventually used nanotech. For all we know there are tiny
cameras and microphones inside the new shield, transmitting
information to another timeline or somewhere else. Once Kang starts
to be a problem, glowing people could appear and offer solutions.
The shield could even be a time travel
device. Sure, Captain America could have just been hanging out for
many, many decades until he made his stealth roll to sit on a park
bench. Or he could have used the shield to send him there from
another timeline. TVA technology can create doorways to travel
through time. They could also have sent him over using some
technology until they beamed him back after he dropped the shield
off. At the right moment, that shield could go off, making everyone
teleport to the same timeline.
SYMBOLS
The symbolism of the five coffins is
easily understood. Thanos, Iron Man, Loki, Black Widow and The
Vision. The coffins also represent the fact the Avengers team is
effectively dead. The circle within the white circle on the inside of
the shield was a warning. Since Captain America is basically super
old now, the fifth coffin could represent him.
Old shield with no line, gaps, or coffins.
Again, pay careful attention to what
The Hulk says to Captain America. He says to watch out for bad
potential timelines. Almost as if it was the punch line to a joke,
when Captain American vanishes he is immediately replaced by an older
version sitting at a bench. We saw a similar logic in place when
Ant-Man kept coming back messed up, so this was foreshadowing.
The black line and trapezoids on the
shield is foreshadowing. In Loki, Kang's supremacy is symbolized by a
circle representing The Sacred Timeline and a strange shape, similar
to a trapezoid, that is Kang's castle. Since Kang won (he tells us so
in Loki) Captain America basically left and came back with a shield
showing Kang's victory. If he had come back with a shield that had a
hammer and sickle on it we would have noticed something was wrong.
Kang's castle looks like a trapezoid.
Each one on the shield could also represent the flawed, murderous
rule Kang's supremacy lead to, since each one symbolizing a timeline
created by Captain America going back in time with the Infinity
Stones with the circle symbolizing Kang's own timeline. Since The Time
Variance Authority are all mind controlled slaves with their memories
wiped clean who kill whole timelines to preserve Kang's rule, a
trapezoid is a proper symbol.
Look familiar?
BAD OLD CAPTAIN AMERICA
There's also something else to
consider. We are given no real evidence that the old Captain America
that shows up is the same one that vanished. He doesn't have the same
shield. He's older. Could he be a robot? Kang mind controls people by
wiping their memories clean. He could probably plant new ones. Maybe
this older Captain America is evil, and the real one is somewhere out
there, lost in time.
This older, variant Captain America
might also be from a timeline where he is evil and America is a
fascist dictatorship. The strange shield he brought back could be a
danger to the past, which is Kang's present and our future. The new
Captain America shield could be a time bomb! Like we learned in
Loki, not all variants of a hero, or villain, are the same. Older Cap
could also be Older Evil Cap, working for Kang. Either way, good or
bad, he helped The Conqueror.
From the original film. So, how many actually exist?
THE END..?
The next movies coming out set the
stage nicely for the new Captain America, featuring Falcon. I'm glad
he got a shield. Flying around without a helmet in a jetpack while
other heroes like Iron Man and War Machine get indestructible armor
is insulting. That new shield is going to be a factor in the film,
and by then we are going to know more about Kang the Conqueror
because there's going to be another Spider-Man film, another
Doctor Strange film, and another Ant-Man and Wasp.
Most of these movies include the other
characters. If that shield has any special properties, we are going
to learn about them. There's also another Avengers film coming out,
and it would be a fun surprise if a shield that has been in the
audience's face for so long is revealed to be completely different
and essential to the story line involving Kang.
There's also something else I've
noticed.
At the end of Loki the camera backs out
of a black hole. We see a spacecraft flying towards us for an
instant, as if trying to leave. Is that The Avengers? The X-Men? The
Fantastic Four? All of them have access to spacecraft. Why are they
leaving? Where are they going? We then see another black hole. Why
two? Why not five or six? Is Kang lying? Did he just photocopy the
universe and conquer that? When Thanos used the Infinity Stones to
destroy them, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, a
new universe was probably created (we were told they were created
during The Big Bang) when they were.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so the 'Stones became another universe.
We leave the black hole and escape the
singularity (how did we do that?) and end up in another black hole.
Further and further the POV travels until we are at Kang's castle. So
Loki is inside a black hole with a copy of another universe in a
black hole inside of it. That clears things up nicely. Not.
Now that I've really thought about it,
the ship you saw leaving the singularity from the last episode of
Loki, season 1, was probably owned by The Collector. What was he
collecting? Or who?
The Collector's ship.
When Star Lord is first introduced, he
is dancing along to "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone. In
Avengers Infinity War, he is doing the exact same thing on the
exact same planet in the exact same position listening to the exact
same song. It's practically synchronized. Sure, it could be that Star
Lord does that alot. Or it could be that the events of Avengers
Infinity War and Avengers Endgame take place in a completely
different universe.
When Doctor Strange first sees the
multiverse, it's not parallel universes. The imagery is psychedelic.
When The Hulk talks to The Ancient One, she says infinity stones
create universes. In Avengers Infinity War, Doctor Strange saw
many, many universes where Thanos was not defeated. Only one timeline
allowed The Avengers to win...one where anyone who is a threat to
Kang is destroyed. How convenient.
Where did he go? What did he get? Where is he going? Why?
When we catch up with Star Lord it
could be that it's a clue the audience is watching a parallel
universe, where Star Lord already met his friends before ending up
where he was, again, only for him it's the first time. I honestly
don't know. Maybe that other universe we saw in Loki is a photocopy
created from the destruction of the first set of Infinity Stones, and
all of the characters that died in the first universe are in that
one.
That's enough mystery for today. Sorry
I cannot answer any of these questions that have just been created.
We'll have to be patient. What does this new Captain America shield
truly represent, for the future of the MCU? Only time will tell.
