Bio

Hometown:	Lavonia, GA
School:	Columbus State University
Employer:	CSU's Coca-Cola Space Science Center

I was born and raised on Country music, but, of late, I'm not happy with the new direction it's taking. I've noticed it changes attitudes once or twice in a decade. Lately it's all about pride. Southern pride. Hometown pride. This pride or that pride. It began with "Redneck Woman" and has slowly become this ever-deepening spiral. Such songs were around before Gretchen Wilson made her hit, but not nearly in such a huge mass.

A few years ago, I was introduced to a bit more Rock music, and I began acquiring a taste for it. A band called Blind Guardian showed me the depths of the potential for Rock and Metal, and fed me all sorts of interesting melodies and tales from Tolkein's Silmarillion. This interested me in Heavy Metal, the addition of Dream Theater to my pallette threw Progressive Rock into the mix, and, by proxy, most rock genres slowly fell into the ever-widening pool.

I'll listen to just about anything now. But I have a few things that must not be present. For instance, I can handle rap, but the subject matter of most mainstream rap is a real turnoff. I don't even like rock songs that deal too much with b**ches or whores, drugs or sex. It's stupid, and there are better things to discuss. For instance, I can't Buckcherry's "Crazy B**ch", but I love DragonForce's epic tales of love, valor, courage, and strength. I also prefer for vocalists to actually sing their music. Continual, never-ending growls, grunts, or screams are not art. The well-place growl or scream, used to show emotion or some other thing that must be highlighted can be taken artfully. An example: while I haven't heard much else that I like by Revielle, I love "Bleed the Sky" because it is highlighting and repeating the speaker's urge for somebody to SHUT UP ("Say no more! I've heard enough to know...").

Among my favorite musicians:

Vocalists:
Hansi Kursch
James Labrie
Tony Kakko
Simone Simons (*drool*)
Amy Lee
John Reznik (spelling? strange last name...)
Matt Barlow
Tim Owens