Bear's Monthly Mayhem - August 2023!
Archived from BearWiseman.com
Welp, another month and the summer at large are at last behind us.
This has been a weird last year or two. I found a son, loved him with all I could, lost him stupidly, and then ultimately lost him in a… more final way. I’m someone who believes that all experiences, good or bad, are what life is all about. It’s the reason why I actively strive to be “weird” and do/see things differently than normal. I want to have the most unique experience of life possible. Well, my cub was one hell of an experience. He gave me some of the biggest highs and most painful lows of my life. Yet I don’t hold anything against him. He only ever showed that side of himself to me, so even though it hurts that no one really shares my loss, it just means that what he and I had together was more unique and special than anyone can ever know. I’m just sorry more people didn’t see the best of him. In fact, I’m sorry no one really saw it. He was one of the most incredible people I’ve ever known, for many reasons, but somehow, I was the only person he ever shared the true best of himself with, and for that I am endlessly grateful. Fortunately, I have an idea of what to do for his legacy, so I will do my best for him on that front.
Anyways, in the middle of my grief I had completely forgotten that there was a Marko Hietala/Tarja Turunen show coming up on the 3rd, so I was in a weird state and not really wanting to go, but I also hadn’t seen Tarja perform since, I think, her show from the Colors on the Road Tour in Hämeenlinna back in 2014. So, I sucked it up and went anyways, since I promised them a merch person if they were so inclined. That was a great show—seeing Tarja and Marko perform “Phantom of the Opera” together definitely fulfilled something in me that never saw them together in Nightwish.
And then, of course, the next weekend was Dark River Festival. While I wasn’t really interested in the lineup this year (and arguably, I’d have rather been at Blind Guardian at Hellsinki Metal Festival the same weekend), I’m rather loyal to Dark River and Enslain, so I opted to go to Kotka anyways. Oh, yeah, also they brought Machinae Supremacy down from Sweden and this is a rare and beautiful thing—because they don’t have a label, MaSu very seldomly ever gets to play festivals. Plus, I haven’t seen them since March 2022 and I was having a rough time that day, so I was excited to see them again! Admittedly, I missed my sister-in-law’s wedding for this, but I had promised to attend this weekend far before their date was announced and, if I’m being honest, Finnish weddings are really awful a lot of the time. Unless I meet someone new/interesting, who wants to talk to me, it’s generally a night of me fiddling with my phone because all the stories and speeches, etc., are happening in Finnish. That said, I am very happy for her and am sorry I couldn’t be there. The Dark River reports didn’t seem to go online this month, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—stay tuned for those next month.
Speaking of MaSu, incidentally, but I mentioned last month that I retired as Editor of Tuonela Magazine so I can focus more on myself and doing things not-for-free. This meant that I moved Unleashed over to this website! Unleashed is a series of articles that delve deep into the stories from concept albums and the first article I did was for MaSu’s “Phantom Shadow.” So you can check all of those out down below! As well, this has freed up a bit of time, so I’ve been doing some more of my own writings, like finishing up a Product Review of Hairstory’s New Wash and a Writing 101 article on sitcom romances and how How I Met Your Mother totally shit the bed on their ending, which you can find down below.
Another interesting thing from this month was when some guy from a band, who had maybe one big hit in the early 2010s but whose career never went anywhere from there, had reached out (on this website, not via Tuonela, incidentally) to see if I’d cover his band. The interactions with this person were annoying at best and deeply offensive at worst (you know, asking me, essentially, if I was done grieving enough to pay attention to him yet), and when I decided to step up and explain to him why he was doing was creating a bad first impression of him, he began Block-fest 2023 (as in, blocking a nonsensical number of my socials and socials of people I work with). It seems that even in this day and age, asking someone to respect your boundaries is still impossible for some people, and they take every form of criticism, no matter how constructive, as a personal insult and offense. So I’m sorry to say that I wasted my time on that, though it did lead to a very interesting Google-wormhole, where I found out that this guy has a bad reputation for causing pointless drama, grooming teenaged women (this dude is 44, just to be clear on how much of a creep he is), and likes to start completely unfounded lawsuits against more successful and talented artists than he is. Well, at least I can rest easy knowing that I didn’t show any support to an abusive narcissist in the end. This guy is clearly digging his own grave.
On the nicer side of the music spectrum, I did recently learn that an older power metal act, Coventhrall, has made a resurgence, with their lead singer being none other than Sami “Texas” Ilvonen, aka the original karaoke host from Heavy Corner (the bar where I made all my friends when I first moved here). Sami was always an amazing singer, so it’s fun to hear him singing again, especially in the context a sci-fi space opera. I did a premiere for their third single, “Nova Burst,” which is also my favorite of the new singles, so do check it out down below. In other simple journalism, I did reviews for Asking Alexandria and From Grotto’s new releases; the former was a bit in dedication to my late cub, while the latter are one of my favorite psychedelic acts from Finland, so both were worth taking the time to check out!
Also, the newest episode of Gathering of Geeks is a fabulous one—I met Jouni Koponen at the 2022 Helsinki Comic Books Festival, as he was at a booth promoting the graphic novel he had released, Lore of the Hávamál. He was the friendliest person at the festival (with the objective exception of JP Ahonen, who is the nicest person on earth), so I decided to buy his book, and we’ve since stayed in touch on Instagram and he’s even come to play a session of Mörk Borg with us recently, so you can imagine that we had a blast geeking out together—this episode covers more subjects than ever, and is the longest one yet at around 2:45:00 in length! So don’t miss this one, it’s really fun (I had a list of topics, but my laptop restarted without saving, so I lost it… shit).
So, here’s the newest articles for this month, with my best-of playlist linked below. It’s still pretty empty, considering we’re this far through the year, so feel free to make some recommendations!
GATHERING OF GEEKS: S01E11 ft. Jouni Koponen
UNLEASHED: Machinae Supremacy share the story behind “Phantom Shadow”
UNLEASHED: Everfrost share the story behind “Blue Eyed Emotion”
UNLEASHED: Everfrost share the story behind “Winterider”
UNLEASHED: Lost in Grey share the story behind “The Grey Realms”
UNLEASHED: Lost in Grey share the story behind “The Waste Land”
PRODUCT REVIEW: Hairstory Studio’s New Wash & NW (Deep)
WRITING 101: Sitcom Romance - A Look at How HIMYM Shit the Bed
LIVE REPORT: 3.8.2023 Marko Hietala & Tarja Turunen @ Olavinlinna
PREMIERE: Coventhrall - Nova Burst
REVIEW: Asking Alexandria - Where Do We Go from Here?
REVIEW: From Grotto - Monuments of Our Time
SONG OF THE DAY: The Cog is Dead - The World Outside (Is Gonna Be the Death of Me)