Bear's Monthly Mayhem - May 2024!

You are the champions!

Jun 04, 2024

The sun has finally started to shine! First and foremost, let me once again thank you for perusing my Monthly Mayhem newsletter! I appreciate you!

If you’re a new subscriber, I hope you enjoy this monthly write-up of my most recent reviews, projects, services, and merch gigs, as well as a general catch-up (and a cat picture or two)! The purple links will take you directly to the articles!

LIVE MUSIC FINLAND &… THE NETHERLANDS?

Even though I’ve been really enjoying my time covering the indie scene lately, it’s become increasingly clear that I need a more serious break from music journalism, though not a complete hiatus, of course.

First up was Helsinki Psych Fest, which I unfortunately was only able to cover a small amount of, but I do really love that festival and it was fun to be there, even if it was only for a short while. Shout-out to the folks from Tuliryhmä Roihu, as one of them recognized me, gave me a sticker, and made me smile.

I also headed over to the Netherlands on the 10th to meet up with my friend Kathy Criswell, whom you may recall me mentioning in my last few newsletters. We went to Dordrecht and Zwolle to check out Altamullan Road and Damian Wilson, the former with Delain, whom I actually hadn’t seen in a venue setting before, for some odd reason. It was an awesome trip and we had a blast.

The last show I went to was JoJo & Friends again on the 15th. At first, I was excited to go because Bambi L. was one of the guests. I met her the first time I saw Johanna von Hertzen performing along with Helena Haaparanta and Emmy June at the Musamimmit vol.2 show back in November. Then I got more excited because Saku Solin (Fear of Domination, Turmion Kätilöt) was also going to be there and I frankly haven’t seen him in a while. This happened to also be Helena’s birthday, so we made a little party out of it!

It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t write a report, but I did go see my friend Matti Meri-Huhti (Vansidian) performing as Starquake Synthmaster at Finnegan’s this month and it was a lot of fun. If you like video game -inspired synth music, I would absolutely recommend checking him out.

MUSIC REVIEWS

I made an effort not to take on new reviews in May, but I did release the Ayreon “01011001: Live Beneath the Waves” review and another of Arjen Lucassen’s projects (featuring the absolutely stellar Robert Soeterboek): Plan Nine, who released their debut, “The Long Lost Songs,” but I wrote both of those earlier in the year. Perhaps I will not be writing any album reviews in June…

Don’t forget the April-May New Song Watch too!

NON-MUSIC REVIEWS

In the process of taking it easy, I actually didn’t review anything this month, but I will have reviews of the games Minute of Islands and Super Mario: Odyssey coming out in the future.

I have been considering moving some of my book reviews from Goodreads over to my website. I did finally pick up my first Joe Abercrombie book, The Blade Itself, so perhaps that will be my first fresh book review in years.

PROJECTS

The editing process of Kathy’s novel, Aphrodite Rising, is proceeding nicely and the story really has me on the edge of my seat at times.

I wanted to dedicate May to focusing more on myself. I’ve had so many balls in the air for so many years that these metaphorical balls have been, essentially, flying out of my hands and scattering to the four winds. I can’t be a writer and a review and an interview and a podcaster all at the same time…

If I haven’t already mentioned, I’ve had struggles with my mental and physical health for quite a long time. My physical health took a nosedive in 2009 after a bad whiplash injury for which I was never given any treatment, while the stress of being a struggling immigrant in Finland has done a number on my mental health. As a result of all the chronic pains and stresses, I just haven’t felt the most creative a lot of the time, so I’m hoping to recharge that by resting and reconnecting with things that bring me joy, like reading!

ISLANDS OF NIGHTSEA

Islands of Nightsea remains on hiatus, though I am still toying around with different doodles and drawings to see if I can get myself comfortable enough to do the artwork. I do still have a lot of ideas for stories though, so it won’t be gone forever. Probably the first step is going to be to get some sort of art tablet…

OFF THE RECORD

Since I’m trying to have fewer balls in the air these days, I decided not to take on many interviews in May. I still have my interview with Today Was Yesterday waiting for me, and I also have a more on-the-record interview with Arjen Lucassen and Robert Soeterboek coming up soon.

I’ve also tentatively lined up interviews with Vies Vignette and Rabbit Cult, as well as Timo Kurkela, so now that I will have a bit of a stash, I should hopefully have these all starting to come out in June!

GATHERING OF GEEKS

Gathering of Geeks is another project that needs to go on partial hiatus, though I did want to do something fun with the folks from Eye of Melian while I was in the Netherlands, so we did a Gathering of Geeks: Trivia Showdown where I asked Robin la Joy, Johanna Kurkela, and Martijn Westerholt some questions about Disney movies, Lord of the Rings, Skyrim, and a few other subjects to see who’s the biggest fantasy geek among them.

I’m also planning to have Vincent Lilium of SulphuriS on the podcast soon, since they’re playing at Tuska Festival this year.

ENSLAIN METAL MERCH

My only official merch gig in May was early on, as Geoff Tate’s crew had to send their rep home and were without someone during their Helsinki show. He was putting on a Greatest Hits performance and a few of my friends came along to see it, so it was a nice night!

I did also help out with Altamullan Road’s merch in Zwolle since Robin had to hold down the fort alone. I hope I was helpful, but at least it was fun to experience what merch sales are like in other countries.

GENERAL BEARSNESS

I’ve been talking a lot about the problems I’ve been having in my body, so I suppose catching up on that is first and foremost. I went back to my osteopath on the 2nd and I brought a friend along. I’m endlessly fascinated by how this guy can put a finger on your knee and ask you an extremely personal question. In this case, he asked my friend if he feels like he doesn’t belong in this world, which was, once again, extremely on-the-nose.

In my case, he was finally able to open up the base of my skull, which has apparently been cutting off the blood flow to my spinal cord and thus causing the bad spinal spasms I’d suffered throughout April. The first week or so afterwards was quite painful as my body worked on realigning itself and figuring out where everything belongs again, but movement of the spasms to the under-right side of my ribs was a vast improvement (those, I can breathe through and stretch out with less debilitating pain). The absolutely raw and very painful muscle under my right shoulder blade took several weeks to calm down but has finally stopped hurting me constantly too. Progress!

I went back to see him once again on the 27th and he found that my right shoulder was pretty locked up, which was causing the tension in my right hip, which explained why I suddenly lost about 50% of the power in my right leg a handful of months ago. So, slowly and surely, power is returning to my right side after he “turned my shoulder-blade to liquid” (meaning he got it to soften up and move back where it belongs).

I am still suffering from a chronic exhaustion that is taking a bit of a toll on my mental health lately. I am not the most patient person when it comes to healing, which is really only to my detriment — Rome is not built overnight. Lasting progress is, unfortunately, a slow process. At least I’m trying to watch my diet and make sure I’m getting out into the yard and taking short walks.

Another thing that I want to talk about is this book that I’ve been reading, called Breath, by James Nestor (the Finnish translation is Hengitys). It was recommended by my osteopath on maybe my second visit and I only just got around to starting to read it and it’s truly one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever read. I opened the book with a fair degree of skepticism, but paragraph after paragraph, with all of the history and research put into the power of breath, I became completely enraptured! The main point of the book relates to the magnitude of importance that breath has to us, our lives, etc., and how our ability to breath properly has deteriorated over time, and why. There are anecdotes and research from throughout time and from all over the planet about how harmful breathing through our mouths is, which causes such problems as snoring, sleep apnea, cavities, bad teeth, weak mouths, ADHD, and so much more. What’s even more fascinating, though, is that apparently training ourselves to stop breathing through the mouth can have life-changing effects… it seems like learning to breathe correctly can change everything. In my own experience, it’s true that when I mouth breathe during exercise, my asthma is aggravated and I start to essentially choke, but I have noticed (long before my asthma was diagnosed) that if I simply switched to yoga breathing (pranayama) when hiking or exercising, I would immediately feel more energized and capable of doing the hard work. I have a goal, which I currently feel is very attainable, of never buying another inhaler again. I cannot recommend this book enough!

The Vappu party on the last day of April didn’t get mentioned in my last newsletter because the newsletter came out the morning beforehand, but it’s worth mentioning that it was perhaps the best Vappu I’ve had in my 15 years in Finland, so I want to send a special thanks to everyone who came out. It was a wonderful evening with the absolute best company!

Of course, I also had that trip to NL — spending time with Kathy is always a treat, because she’s just such a beam of sunshine to be around (and absolutely not in a way that’s toxically positive). I look forward to seeing her again when she inevitably comes here for Johanna Kurkela’s Christmas shows at the end of the year. And when I got back from NL, another American friend, Mary, immediately came to visit — she’s a big black metal fan and likes to come to Steelfest, but she’s also got a lot of the same hippy habits that I do, so naturally I love it when she’s around. I hope she can move here soon! (If you know any film projects that need videography, pretty please hire her!)

I’ve been trying to have more low-key social interactions with people whose company I really enjoy and I’m happy to say that the people I’ve been spending time with lately have been giving me energy, rather than taking it away, so thanks again to anyone who’s been out to visit!

My Zweihänder campaign continues to be a fun learning experience, as we had our first Hunt session. While our Curse of Strahd DnD campaign died due to the GM’s dislike of DnD, I’m happy to say that my Darkness campaign has been really fun so far and I’m glad people have been enjoying themselves, as I tend to get very stressed out before GMing.

I’ve also been quite hard at work in my garden, as I completely ripped up my flower bed, used my mom’s organic weed killer recipe to spray the outer edge, added a liner, weeded out the whole mess, planted two new bushes, and added ALL OF THE MULCH (yes, I am obsessed with mulch). I also added a wooden liner to my literal bed herb bed, and we’ve put in some planter boxes up in the vegetable garden, which is sadly probably not going to see much use this year, but at least it’s ready for next.

I also brought in a hefty harvest of nokkonen (nettle) and horsma (fireweed) — nettles are great anti-inflammatories (put a few leaves in tea if you have allergies to anything for 4-hour relief) and fireweed is amazing for sore throats and is very tasty if you get young leaves fresh to put in salad. I will be on the prowl later for meadowsweet, greater burdock, and a few others!

That’s all for May! Here’s a quote from Breath that talks about its grave importance to us living creatures.

“No matter what we eat, how much we exercise, how resilient our genes are, how skinny or young or wise we are—none of it will matter unless we’re breathing correctly. That’s what these researchers discovered. The missing pillar in health is breath. It all starts there.”

— James Nestor, “Breath”

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Coming Next Month…

Tuska is the main event for June and accreditation is already approved, so if you’re going, I’ll see you there (if you can find me in the massive crowd)! They’ve got quite the interesting lineup this year! I’ll also be at Love Potion Club on the 5th and on merch duty for Postmodern Jukebox on the 7th.

Thanks again for reading along this month!

And below is my Best of 2024 playlist! Welcome to follow along!

Bear's Book of Balance