Nine Inch Nails
- good so it hurts

Whenever you feel sad and down, but the tears doesn't want to start falling - let your speakers present to you - a voice so filled with pain it actually hurts.

People who saw Trent Raznor live, sitting down and singing "Something I can never have" and "Hurt" get tears in their eyes, even when being happy... It's years and years of misery in both the voice and the words.

I'll give you some samples from both of the songs:

"I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing thats real

the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything"

The beginning of Hurt which you can find on The Downward spiral album from 1994.

"I still recall the taste of your tears
Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears
My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore
Scraping through my head till I dont want to sleep anymore

Come on tell me
You make this all go away
You make this all go awayI
m down to just one thing
And Im starting to scare myself

You make this all go way
You make this all go way
I just want something
I just want something I can never have

You always were the one to show me how
Back then I couldnt do the things that I can do now
This thing is slowly taking me apart
Grey would be the color if I had a heart"

From the album Pretty Hate Machine from 1989.

Well, they guy knows what he is talking about... He has lived a hard life until just recently, when he quit the drugs. And then came With Teeth, in may this year - and he still knows how to do it!!! There is still magic,anger, so much feelings in his voice and in the songs. Nine Inch Nails should have appeared on the MTV award show, but weren't allowed, since they wished to have a poster of George W Bush as background for their... how to put this... not in the republicans eyes proper patriotic singing... one part of "The hand that feeds" goes like this:

"What if this whole crusade's a charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood on which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine "

If you haven't explored the world of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and Trent Raznor yet, then it's time now. I dream I could express my feelings half as good.

So let's enjoy Trent and hope that he wont be silent with his band for many years to come!

Music
- instead of punchbag

At least, that is how I work. Instead of puring hot coffee over a silly collegue, really kicking someones butt or throw myself over a bridge when things are bad, I try to find THE music for the moment.

I'm not a big fan of Rage Against the Machine, but when things makes me wish to... listening to their "Killing in the name of" and singing "F**k you, I wont do what they tell me" inside my head really helps. Angry Itch from the movie "Hedwig and the angry inch" but with Type O Negative takes me to party mood in no time. And listening to the dark sound of "Wreckage of my flesh" with My Dying Bride turns me on (oh I know, there's no really logic in that one, but it works).

So music really helps to keep me insane, when life itself doesn't!

Well, that's all for now folks! Just one thing more:
It's hard to remember someone who is like everyone - so be yourself, be special.

Jeff Wiedlandt
- The man, the myth, the legend

Born in 1967, like me, so how could he fail... and he didn't. But along his path of life, he changed his name to Zakk Wylde, and now (I hope) you know who I'm talking of. A WOW guitarrist, but also pianist (ever saw the video of "In this river"?), vocalist and of course - song writer.

When Zakk sent his demo tape to Ozzy Osbourne he was only 19 and willing to replace Jake E Lee who was a temporary solution as a guitarrist for Ozzy, after he tragically lost Randy Rhoads. Randy was someone Zakk really thought of as a superiour guitarrist and still he says that there is hard to find someone to beat him. The young mister Wylde was hired after just one audition, so I guess he wasn't that bad either!
So Zakk plays lead guitarrist in Ozzy's band, but he has also been able to make a few other things. Being a friend of Dimebag Darrell, he was also featured on Damageplans first album, he played with Yngwie Malmsteen on one of Derek Sherinan's albums, he was in the band Pride & Glory for their one and only album, and last but not least, he has his own band Black Label Society. When people ask Zakk if he wont focus on his own project instead of backing up Ozzy, he says: "Just because you move out from your parents house, it doesn't mean that you stop loving your father". Enough said there...

Zakk Wylde has a certain style of playing - using "chicken pickin'", used a lot in country music, and pinch/artificial harmonics. Almost as known as his special style of playing the guitar, is the guitar itself. Gibson Les Paul with a characteristic bulls-eye. It's a perfect match with his bike too, one of his other big interests.

In one of Metal hammers issues this year, there was an interview with Zakk, where they asked him what he did to have this excellent beard. The only way to grow such a beard, according to Zakk, was to go down between a womans legs and use the moist there... If I'd been 17 and not 37, I would have blushed...

Well after knowing all this, why don't you go and get yourself a copy of his most recent album Mafia, or his Hangover album (perfect for hangovers, promise...)?

Fear Factory
- Transgression (2005)

Last few days, I've been listening a lot to Fear Factory's Transgression. I can't say I fell in love totally from the start... but after swapping from crappy small things in my ears to a more suitable room for Ray's drums, there it was.

I must admit I was a bit surprised when the first track I listened to was the U2 cover I will follow, but then... I love good surprises, and I guess no one thought they would make a full album of 12 songs sounding like copies of each other... If I wish to feel comfortable instead, I listen to Empty Vision, Millenium and Moment of Impact. They just force me to make my own mini-moshpit (is that really possible?). If my mum comes to visit, I can even make her enjoy Echo of my scream and New Promise. And back to the U2 cover again, well, for me I prefer the heavier parts of Transgression, but if they didn't explore, how could they evolve?

Enough good music for me to feel satisfied and sneak into their homepage http://www.fearfactory.com to watch mr Herrera try to break his drums from three different angles... and if I miss "the good old days", I have their old albums - still beating the crap out of most new music I find.

And after they've finished their tour in U.S, there is no reason at all why they shouldn't hit Sweden with a brainmelting, totally unforgettable consert, right?

Cheers from Blue