Dan Conley

A year ago, I talked about how Coheed and Cambria (and you’ll notice that since then I’ve said screw the authority file) were pretty self-involved and juvenile. Then I saw them in concert. Since then, well, um, I’ve kind of gotten really into them. With Dave’s help, of course, but I now consider them ‘my favorite band where everyone is still alive’ (RIP Joe Strummer, Keith Moon and John Entwistle). As always, Dave allows me to get enthusiastic about something in ways that are otherwise impossible, leading me to think of the great idea (and timewaster at his fiancé’s wedding shower) to compare all the track ones, track twos, etc and make a ‘Numerical Best of.’ (Let me tell you, In Keeping Secrets vs No World For Tomorrow was but one of the hard choices that had to be made).

When we got the date for the bachelorette party he looked, idly, at Coheed’s tour schedule. The day before they’re playing in Sayreville, NJ, which is kind of close, but — oh, it’s 6.5 hours away? And sold out? Oh, okay. But it’s also at the Starland Ballroom, where they’ve recorded a live album. We could do this. We could take a road trip.

Which, thanks to eBay, we shall.

It’s spontaneous and slightly crazy in all the ways that my life generally isn’t, and it means that I’ll get to hear Gravemakers and Gunslingers for the first time since I found out it was totally awesome. A year ago I was ashamed by my fanaticism. Now I embrace the hell out of it. I know I’m a dork, but you know what the best part about being a dork is? You don’t care.

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I’ve talked about it before, but I really can’t stress how great Amazon’s mp3 service is: in addition to generally being cheaper than CDs and iTunes (and being DRM-free), they also have a deal of the day. I’m currently downloading Synchronicity by the Police, which I just purchased for two dollars. It’s really hard to see the downside in that transaction (and remember, I’m a contender for the title of Cheapest Bastard on the Internet).

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I suppose I should elaborate on Coheed and Cambria a bit, as Saturday I’ll be heading over the border with Elizabeth, Dave and Patricia to see them in concert. Get it, their latest album is No World For Tomorrow, and there’s no concert for tomorrow because it’s actually Saturday, and… ah, forget it.

I think that, if anything, I’m more ambivalent than I was before. They make some pretty good music, but it’s pretty good music that’s self important to the point of silliness (something I know a little about: this is my fourth blog post today, after all). I was able to read the first issue of The Amory Wars, and I thought both the writing and the art was fairly horrible. ‘Coheed was feeling upset.’ Well, really? How about you show that and let us figure it out for ourselves? The writing reinforced my feeling that Claudio Sanchez never got past the ‘man I have this idea for a story and it is so deep’ phase we all go through in high school (to anyone I ever forced to read Platinum, I’m sorry).

It also doesn’t help that the song Feathers seems to be about all women being dirty lying whores. That’s not exactly a message I can get behind.

Though it seems sort of cliche, I wonder how much pressure they’re under to make more radio-friendly songs. They have songs like Wake Up and Feathers, but then end their albums with four or five track series that are much more orchestral. Whether intentional or not, they’re increasingly adding in more generic crap that I’ll be forced to two-star in iTunes.

And yet I paid $40 to be able to see them perform live (I’d like to be able to make a joke about that being like five American dollars, but sadly the denizens of America’s Hat are chortling to themselves in between bites of poutine). It’s because, hard as I am on them, the thought of hearing In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and Welcome Home is exciting. I enjoy listening to their studio stuff, and they seem to be the type of band whose awesomeness increases tenfold live.

As much as I know it’s not a good thing, I’m a very reactionary person. A whole lot of stupid kids like Coheed and Cambria, which makes me disinclined to give them a chance. It’s the same way with Tool: they’re talented as all get out, but people think that Maynard is a god and he’s too busy thinking of himself as an arteest.

And how does that work? You’re a bicycle.

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Over the weekend, Dave did what Dave does best: transfer some of his overwhelming enthusiasm about something onto me. In this case, it was Coheed & Cambria. (side note: I generally prefer ‘and’ to ‘&’ but my adherence to authority files comes first)

I’ve known about C&C for a while now, after being allow to, erm, preview In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. They seemed like they took themselves fairly seriously (I mean the title, really?) but had decent music, but since piracy leads to not appreciating new musical acquisitions (one of the main reasons besides ‘moral superiority’ that I stopped) I didn’t really listen much past that. Oh, and also because I have no freaking clue what Claudio Sanchez is saying.

Due in large part to both ‘Welcome Home’ and ‘Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)’ (again with the titles!) being in Rock Band, the two of us became exposed to them again. The songs are, pretentiousness aside, a ton of fun to play and have gotten me to listen to both In Keeping Secrets and also Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV: Volume One, From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness.

Now, seriously. Come on. Is that really necessary? There’s also their newest release, Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow; according to Wikipedia, ‘Neither the disc itself nor its outer packaging suggest the Good Apollo title, though it is found printed on the cover of the accompanying lyrics booklet.’ This is probably because they were told ‘Guys, really, no one knows what the hell you’re talking about anyway, just give it up.’

All the naming and so on is because all their releases are concept albums based on the singer’s quasi-science-fiction story The Amory Wars. Both Coheed and Cambria (ha! proper nouns so I can use ‘and’! take that!) are characters in the story, which seems damn confusing. From the titles and knowing a little bit about the story I knew that I needed to read up on the Amory Wars and that, once I knew more, I’d either think it was incredibly interesting or incredibly silly.

After looking all around the related Wikipedia pages this morning, I’m coming down on the side of ‘silly.’

It can best be summed up with what I said to Dave while we watched the video for ‘Welcome Home’: ‘Their logo looks like something I’d have drawn on all my notebooks in high school.’

The ‘Keywork’ is the arrangement of the planets in the Amory Wars universe, which is called ‘Heaven’s Fence.’ There are a series of planets and so on but honestly I can’t be bothered to look it all up again, because the Wikipedia entries have the kind of telling grammatical mistakes that scream ‘I was edited by a 15 year old fan.’

The entire concept is sort of interesting, but also seems like it was taken piecemeal from other sources because it seemed cool at the time. There are cyborgs and zombie mages. The bad guy, far as I can tell, is Wilhelm Ryan the Supreme Tri-Mage of Heaven’s Fence, and his next-in-command is Mayo Deftinwolf. If Sanchez wasn’t in a successful band I’d expect this to be released in serial form on Livejournal or Deviantart.

Right now I’m doing what I generally take others to task for; namely, criticizing something when I don’t know that much about it. In my defense, the Amory Wars graphic novels are either not released or out of print, so I’m doing my best. When I can, I’ll read them and give them a fair reading because I want to like the story. But when Ten Speed is about ‘The Writing Writer’ talking to his bicycle, which is trying to get him to kill off one of the characters in his story (which as far as I can tell is the story of the Amory Wars itself), it’s really hard.

Still fun to drum, though.

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