Heavy MTL This Year Looks Trashy

Another summer, another bunch of festivals! Heavy MTL is meant for the good old fashioned metalheads. There are always some of the biggest bands older bands headlining for this two day concert. This year, we have Metallica and Slayer. Personally, I’m going there for Lamb of God first of all. Then if I’m able to see Twisted Sister on the same day, I’ll be satisfied. Otherwise, I just generally enjoy the feel of these festivals and tours. It’s a great way to discover other bands and have fun outside while waiting for the bands I know and do want to see to do their performances.

This year will be my first time at Heavy MTL. The price always made me feel uncomfortable, but honestly I need to go there at least once before I die just to know what it’s like. It also helps that I have a job this year. If you decide to attend, whether you want to see the bands or simply try the festival out, you can always look around for me and have fun together! For more information on this festive weekend, visit heavymontreal.com. Otherwise, the line-up that changed not long ago can be seen below this text.

For all other information on Heavy Mtl, visit their main website: heavymontreal.com

 

 

Gala des Maitres du Feu Highlights

On March 28th of this year, in a quaint little ex bath-house called the Bain Mathieu, I had the joy of seeing different pyro and belly-dancing enthusiasts entertain a full-house as well as a trio of judges for an event called ‘Les Maitres du Feu’.  It’s a gala as well as a perfect opportunity for many of these performers to gain some fame. The event in itself felt very underground, but it’s understandable seeing as these sorts of entertainers are a sort of dying breed, at least in these parts. I only found out about the gala through a friend of mine who had a spot in the line-up. I admit I had my doubts on how good this show would be. As soon as the show went on however they went away and I had a fantastic time, despite all the little messes here and there throughout the show. What primarily matters is that everything was a safe success.

Without further ado, I shall be showing you the parts of the show that I find were most memorable.

 

Rasmus Leo Foyer

This man not only showed good skill and entertainment, he made a speech before beginning his number that show just how much this passion for fire and his closeness with the element is for him.

 

Marina Salonga & Vulk

The first place winners! A beautiful duo, with a skillful fire-dancer and a wonderful singer that can beat box too.

 

Combat with weapons on fire

You can tell this number was choreographed, but who cares! They fought with flaming weapons, literally. When you’re trying to make sure no one including yourself is safe from such a performance on the first try, it’s not very wise to just improvise with that.

 

Jawa

I met this man through my friend

 

Tribal Roses (Scarlet Black & Kagutsuch Ito)

Another awesome duo. You can tell these two have a lot of experience in fire and show biz.

 

Doc. Robert Sanguis

Finally, you have my friend. He’s the kind of guy who told me he was working on a freak show that people of all ages can enjoy. I hope he manages to go far. Some people might think this is sick, I think it’s just being playfully creative.

 

Search for ‘Maitres du Feu 2014’ to see more videos for this year’s gala. There are also some other recordings of at least the previous year. I leave you now with two little intermission sequences the host did to entertain everyone while waiting for the upcoming number to be ready to perform.

 

  

Comic Review: Crossed

Do you hate extreme gore, hints at satanism and ultimate irony? Well let me tell you, this comic book series sure ain’t for you.

 

 

The first ten issues were written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Jacen Burrows. The rest of the comics that are meant to be only in print were written by David Lapham. That makes six volumes in total. I honestly stumbled on the first volumes when a friend brought it with him to school. After he let me read it, I was hooked. About a year later, I found that a web comic had also been released on the main website of Crossed. It’s still being updated in the present as it approaches the end of its fourth volume.

 

Honestly, this series is sick. It’s sick and twisted yet the irony is that the whole thing, the universe and the laws type of infection invented for this fictional world, is that it’s just one big ironic and cynical joke. Crossed is able to instal chills and thrills in a way that no zombie series has been able to do. The infection doesn’t kill you, it just makes you go crazy until you die. It’s actually very similar to the rage virus stereotype in zombie fiction, where the infected are mindless, angry looking and acting killing machines that will never stop running to reach their victims. The difference isn’t just with the undead trait though, it’s also with how the virus makes you go crazy. You can still speak and and make decisions, but those decisions will almost always revolve around and mix with eating (even if they have to chew on their own and themselves), mating and killing.

If you don’t have the ressources to find and get the volumes of Crossed that are in print, head on over to the series’ main website for full access to the web comic.

 

Crossed’s Main Website: http://www.crossedcomic.com/

Get some of your gaming lore from these channels!

Have you ever played any of the Elder Scroll games and wondered if there was more to its lore than from what you could find in books or stories told from an NPC? Do you have a short attention-span or just don’t have enough time to extensively research your favourite game’s lore on your own time? If it’s the case, you’re reading the right blog post.

I’ve never had a problem with Bethesda’s biggest series. But from what I’ve heard and played, it’s hard to actually know the full story of those games, seeing as there are so many smaller plots going on in their universe. That’s what happens when you make an open world game. A channel going by the name ShoddyCast decided to take it upon themselves to release videos giving as much details on Bethesda’s games as they can. Not only do they research the crap out of the games, they also used references from for their Elder Scrolls series from a lore website that has been alive since 1998. Its creator has worked on much of the series’ lore for the games’ company. Not only that, but the narrator for the Fallout lore series is AMAZING!

 

 

Then, there are games where either you don’t figure there would be a story behind it or players are left to figure most of the story out by simply playing it to the end. Those games have just as many chances of having hints on its lore as there are chances of finding none. LORE is a fun and informative Youtube channel that releases multiple short videos of different kinds. There’s Lore in a Minute, where you get to learn in a short and simple way the story of a game, a company or the development of a game. Then there are Fast Facts, where many anecdotes, cheats or information on a specific part of a game are diverged. To give an example about how creative the people behind this channel can be, here’s their take at Flappy Bird’s lore in a minute. Their catchphrase in the ‘About’ section is “Have fun!”, so I hope you don’t expect all their videos to be this kind of wacky (you’ll understand once you watch it).

Oh, and have fun watching more of these videos if they’re for you!

 

 

 

 

Awesome hardcore cooking show!

Are you aware of the legendary youtube channel Epicmealtime? Well, that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

 

The cooking show I’d like to introduce  to you readers originates from Sweden, although the crew made sure that most viewers on their youtube channel would be able to understand what’s going on in their videos.

 

 

 

Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time likes to embody a stereotype on how metal enthusiasts make food. Their way of cuisine is brutal, without mercy and often messy, yet the process gives you surprisingly normal looking and delicious results! This group essentially makes regular home-cooked meals with the joke being that it’s done in a not so regular and ordinary fashion. Their first video dates back to 2011, when at first it was a “retourt to EpicMealTime”. They continued to steadily post videos and gaining their own fame, then went on hiatus. For a long time, no one really knew when and if the cast of Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time would come back to youtube.

Now, after about a year of waiting, I’m excited to say that they’ve back!  Here’s their first and latest video since their short announcement of their return.

 

 

If you find this kind of show entertaining, look this channel up on youtube . They also have a facebook, twitter, instagram and google+ if you want to help support them. And if ever you become a big fan of theirs, they have an awesome merchandise at their online store if you’d like to be a walking ad for them while wearing cool clothing.

We can wear our Vans this summer!

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Last summer for maybe the first time ever, a famous touring music and extreme sports festival didn’t visit Montreal on it’s usual month. Vans warped tour had claimed that for the past few years, they hadn’t been getting enough revenue from the island to stop by in 2013 at the usual place for the festival to take place.

However, it seems like warped tour decided to reconsider leaving Montreal out of their tour dates for at least this summer. This wasn’t much of a surprise for most regular attendees of the festival. Montreal is known for having a substantial amount of crazy music fans who love their festivals and shows. It was probably more of a surprise to not have warped over last year. Amongst some of the first rumors on why the tour and its bands couldn’t come last year, one of them was directed at  Pauline Marois and the PQ (or Pack Quickly, for many anglophones who live in this province). They thought  that thanks to them, festivals in Quebec were to have a quota on francophone artists involved to be able to place dates in this province. It’s only ever been a rumor, however. Now, anyone who had to miss the festival last year can rejoice and drool all over this summer’s line-up!

Vans Warped Tour will be in Montreal over at Parc Jean-Drapeau on July 5th. Tickets are priced at 45$ for now and will cost 50$ on showings.

For more info on this tour and its bands, check out http://vanswarpedtour.com/

Out of the 103 bands that will be part of Warped Tour, I look forward to seeing at least a good dozen of them if f I can get myself a ticket. What about the rest of you guys? Would anyone who’s never been to Warped Tour try it out if they had the chance?

 

 

A bit of DiCaprio’s anger

It seems like by now, Leonardo DiCaprio not winning an Oscar from the Academy Awards has become a traditional subject around the date of the event. Even when the people demand that he win a prize, their voices are ignored, and the fact that they have no power over such a decision only seems to add fuel to their fire. Although many of us are angry at the lack of recognition Leo seems to get during the Academy Awards, he often claims that he doesn’t care if he gets a prize or not. Rather, he loves his line of work too much to get affected by simply not having the one trophy missing from his collection of prizes.

However, during this year’s Golden Globe awards ceremony, the same Leonardo DiCaprio who usually stays noble about his snubing decided to finally give a more emotional piece of his mind about it. This was while accpeting the prize for bBest Actor in a Musical or Comedy thanks to his leading role in The Wolf of Wall Street. Here it is in GIF form:

Pretty cool huh? Well…the joke’s on all of us. After doing more research, it turns out that the text in these GIFs was made up and stapled on to them instead of the original acceptance speech.  Here’s the link to the original one, which is a lot more generic and happy:

All in all though, Leo has amazing fans if they’re a hundred times angrier  then him about things like the Academy Awards always snubing him.

Source for the original GIFs : http://imgur.com/gallery/RCvl