My first thought too, the paranoid component is there.
I don't know much about that story either but, if I remember correctly, he reached the point he was sure there was a conspiracy against him which included his bandmates.
The HAARP Machine Megathread
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I don't know much about that story either but, if I remember correctly, he reached the point he was sure there was a conspiracy against him which included his bandmates.
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Lorcan Ward
7slinger
It was so sad seeing that unfold. His cryptic post followed by the band having to assure fans it wasn't true and they are now very worried about him.
Albake21
Ibanez Nerd
There definitely was a time when Al was finally able to play this stuff, I just think when he first came to the scene, he really couldn't do it and needed time to catch up to his own writings.
To be honest, I don't think he gets enough credit for this due to how it started, because like your example, he somehow can play this insane shit. That's what makes all this so sad, the dude can clearly play.
I remember being so hopeful that he was on the road to releasing more music when I saw those videos. LP2 and bits of the singles he's released since then have been really strong too, it's a shame to see it all go sideways again.
A buddy of mine was an opener for them on that infamous first tour and he said it was a total disaster. There are YouTube videos out there of it but he said it was even worse in person. Al wasn't the only guy that was off on his game during that tour, either.
I think it was the tour with Chris Baretto and the second batch of hired guns where they worked out being able to play all the songs. I think the label got on their case and deliberately hired guys to clean up their performance after the awful press.
IIRC I read some posts about his playing being sped up or something, which I couldn't personally tell, but nonetheless I suspended belief based on that suggestion and the fact the material is downright bonkers to play. It seems now that was not baseless suspicion, but I think most of the basis for that accusation was some kind of crabs in a bucket ego padding from a peanut gallery more than him being deceptive about it. That's a very important distinction in my opinion, which is still reasonably open all the same. Dude can play like a motherfucker from what I do see. Of course there's a lot more to pulling off a show as a band and anyone can be unprepared if the spirit gets ahead of the practice, I'm not going to tell anyone what they saw themselves- but dang what a genuine shame he's gone so far off the map with his mental health.
The "sped up" thing was speculated because the actual recordings have artifacts in them like vibrato that oscillates in an unnatural way. That was speculation before they even played live, and then the tour being messy kind of confirmed a pre-existing suspicion.
Part of the reason this got haarped on (see what I did there?) as much as it did is because things like that BW playthrough video have all kinds of sympathetic noises like the cable hum, the string noise from the "mic cam", single camera angle (even though there's a suspicious cutaway to the logo?) to imply it was a one-take perfect performance. I don't really care if an artist uses studio magic to make their stuff but that's a different discussion than explicitly flexing "yes, I play it this clean live, here's proof".
In hindsight, no I don't really think being sped up or punched into death really matters. Also, a lot of the live woes could easily be explained by bad stage monitoring. Playing tech death with a bunch of guys you flew in on short notice, from an album that probably was produced heavily with studio magic and then trying to play it live with a dodgey club wedge monitor mix is a big ask. I think the performances on that tour actually vary a bit from venue to venue, which implies the live sound situation probably played a role.
I still think it's valid that Al and the rest of the band sounded better in v2 than they did at the opening of the tour. And when you're talking about playing your own material, yeah I think that's worth mentioning. There's a lot of guys that transparently say "I know I wrote the song around what sounds best on the recording and decided I'd figure out the live part later"
