It’s been awhile since we’ve found our no longer new Finnish friends in Naked doing a New York City gig so when the chance to check them out once more came up I was very happy to participate in the fun. It was St. Patrick’s Day in New York and you can read that as overall mayhem and serious drinking that leaves people numb for a couple of days afterward. It’s honestly not a day that I generally head into the city, but since I needed to be there for the evening’s Hank 3 show, I replied to the text from “The Muff” and said that he could count on our coverage. What better way to celebrate one’s Irish heraldry than with some good old fashioned Finnish Glam Rock. The interesting thing about this show was that it would be held at the Riff Clothing store and be a “stripped down” version of the band (meaning only The Muff and his other guitarist Zack Schleidecker). Please click the logo below to see the full on concert report and enjoy the photos taken, but then get back to this blog posting to enjoy the side images from the event and some video that was taken.

Click Logo To Read The Concert Review

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Welcome back, I’m so glad you could join us. You might remember how I recently posted a little more than a handful of New Year’s Metal Resolutions for 2012 by some truly great musical personality. Well, please enjoy the continuation of this enlightening and fun group of insights as we ask the Metal Community great to finish the sentence “My New Year’s Metal Resolution for 2012 Is……”

Alex Skolnick (lead guitarist for Testament/Trans-Siberian Orchestra/Alex Skolnick Trio): My New Year’s Musical Resolution is to sift through the endless musical ideas I’ve recorded as voice memos or on MP3′s or cassette in the last few years and develop some of them into real songs.

Lance King (lead vocals for Avian, Pyramaze, more): My New Years Metal Resolution is “To incite the Metal Masses, awaken them from their apathy, to get their collective asses in gear to support the scene wherever they live in any way they can. To help spread the word and to go out to see the touring bands, help them make ends meet by paying the ticket price, having a head banging great time and buying a shirt, music or both!!! Seriously, the scene in all countries needs a huge shot in the arm. People need to take up the support roles of the fallen in promoting shows, championing artists with PR, sponsorships, media coverage, video skills, radio, new marketing ideas, alternate sources of revenue so bands are able to get out and do what they love to do best, share the music with the fans live. There simply is nothing in tech and home media that can reproduced a live metal concert’s experience when done well.

Sammy Avigal (vocals for Avigal): My new year’s Metal resolution is to continue living the Metal dream, enjoy what I love, and do best, and hopefully influence the next generation of Metal heads, as I was influenced as a young Metal head myself by the Metal elders of my generation.
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And now for something completely different

It’s without question that Finland has been delivering some seriously amazing Metal bands to the scene for the last few years and while there are numerous favorites among the fans, I have to cite that Nightwish was my first foray into their provisions.  I first heard of the band in 1999 and was not even doing my Metal Scribe thing yet but they remain one of my own personal top picks to this day.   From this point I began to look into some of their other groups such as Sonata Arctica, Finntroll and so on.  All of these wondrous sounds would come in handy to my mental musical palate once I began to write about it.  Since becoming the Master and Commander of the PiercingMetal universe I have attended a score of concerts that the Finns have brought to our shores and based on the coverage on the site have been fortunate to meet a lot of wonderful musicians from this faraway land.

Today this bountiful provider of Metal celebrates their 94th Independence Day and I just wanted to send them all a hearty “Happy Independence Day” and raise my glass with a very loud “Kippis”.   To celebrate the occasion I copied the tag for “Finnish Metal” which was used on every concert piece that features one of their bands.  Clicking the Finnish flag below will launch that search and you can enjoy the findings.  My hope is that most of you know all the bands already but if you do not, then it is high time to do a little research and eventual purchasing.  I am pretty sure you will like what you hear.   The core website can be searched for those bands via the main page.

Click The Flag To See "Finnish Metal" Postings

One day I will get myself over there and absorb a little more of their culture.  Having seen some of my friends photos and knowing there is even more cool music makes me pretty firm in this idea.  When I do that you can be rest assured that there will be both Metal and Personal blogs written up about the journey.  Of course I will need to learn a little Finnish but luckily I have Sammy The Ambassador to help me along in that regard. Stay tuned.

Our new friends in the band Naked were continuing their US “Double Down” Tour with an appearance at a venue known as Otto’s Shrunken Head down on the Lower East Side. This Tiki Bar makes for a very interesting atmosphere as there is a cool bar in the front and a performance space in the rear.  Naked had returned to the USA after their earlier in the summer visiting and were adding even more gigs to the agenda before heading back home to Finland.  I caught them last week when they played at The Bowery Electric and while there were a number of shows in between my own hectic schedule kept me from only being able to attend any of the other shows except this particular evening so here we were again.   Click the bands logo below to enjoy the full on concert report and then come back here to the blog so you can scroll deeper into the posting for images and viewpoints that are only presented in this space.

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Finnish Glam Rockers Naked were back in town and preparing to lay down some musical good for the next two weeks with their USA Invasion Part Two. I caught the band back in May at the Big City Rebels 4 show which is documented in another post in the blog and website but that tale is one for you to look up after digging into this one. I liked what I saw from the band and felt that with their return that I would also offer up some support in words and photos. Click the bands logo below to be taken to the full concert report on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

The Bowery Electric doesn’t have one of the big glaring marquees like we find at Best Buy Theater or our unofficial home base of B.B. King Blues Club so the presented visual of the show poster will have to suffice for your hungry eyes.

Tonight's Musical Menu

Fans of the band might be interested in my NYC wanderings with The Muff shortly after their Big City Rebels 4 gig.  We had a photographic adventure that you can enjoy easily by clicking THIS LINK.

About a week ago I attended the Big City Rebels 4 concert over at The Studio at Webster Hall and this kick ass Rock Show featured Vains Of Jenna as a headliner with Naked from Finland as direct support.  The gig also found the local talents of Natasha Komis and The Deafening added for good measure.  My main reason for attending was to catch Naked in action and after the show the bands lead singer Muff and I decided to do a little NYC wandering and networking while he was still in town.  The rest of the band had returned to Finland after their several show invasion and while he remained for the duration the time was ripe to book more shows and meet the people that can move the band in the proper direction.  Up.  After meeting publicity peeps we wandered around one of the area parks and snapped some images for posterity.  I recanted my doing something slightly similar when Jyrki 69 was last in town with The 69 Eyes and decided to do something similar yet different featuring Muff.  Take this blog posting as an invitation to join us on the wandering and to enjoy some of the NYC scenery that was captured along the way.  After the lunch, Muff and I wandered through Washington Square Park.  To bypass a chance of a photograph in front of their amazing arch would be criminal.

Muff & Washington Square Park Arch

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