PROFILE: JOHN
LATEST UPDATE: 2-25-05
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Name: John Clark
Birthday: March, 1973
Current location: North Carolina, U.S.
Current occupation: Software Engineer.
Hobbies: Walking, video games, college football, college basketball.
Favorite books: The Dark Tower series, The first 3 Wheel of Time books, It, Lonesome Dove, Tigana.
Favorite movies: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, A Fish Called Wanda, Shawshank Redemption, Goodfellas.
Words that describe me: Metal to the core.
Instrumental talents: Rusty on bass and rustier on drums.
Past and present band experience: Various high school garage bands.
Favorite music listening location and why: The car. Great for focusing on the music without being bored.
How I got into metal: A friend played Black Sabbath for me. Then I heard Blizzard of Ozz and was quickly hooked.
Most influential bands: Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Rage, Skyclad, Manowar, (older) Blind Guardian.
Favorite/most memorable concerts: Gamma Ray, Manowar, Helstar, Arch Enemy, Pink Floyd.
Genre likes: (some) black metal, death metal, (some) doom metal, folk metal, (a tiny bit of) gothic metal, heavy/melodic metal, power metal, (a small amount of) progressive metal, (livelier) symphonic metal, thrash metal.
Genre dislikes: (a lot of) black metal, (some) death metal, (the more plodding) doom metal, (the wank filled) progressive metal.
Thoughts on the metal genres:
Black metal: I like the more melodic, catchy and better produced stuff. Almost none of the "troo" black metal.
Death metal: I stick mainly to the more melodic stuff. The extreme death stuff never did much for me.
Doom metal: I tend to like the more melodic and peppy bands in this genre. Too much plodding and it puts me to sleep.
Folk metal: Love it.
Gothic metal: I am not entirely sure I know what this is. But I know I like some bands I have seen others call Gothic metal, so I must like a little bit of it.
Heavy/melodic metal: Love it.
Power metal: LOVE it.
Progressive metal: More into it in the early 90s when it was the more prevalent melodic metal around. Now, have little patience for most of it. Still love one or two (well maybe just one) band(s) nowadays.
Symphonic metal: I tend to lump this in with power metal, unless it's something like Therion.
Thrash metal: Like the catchy, riffalicious stuff.
Favorite musicians: Steve Harris, Kai Hansen, Peavy Wagner, Dave Lombardo, Jon Schaffer.
Favorite vocalists: Kiske, Dickinson, Halford, Peavy, Tarja, Leather Leone.
Favorite CD covers: Blind Guardian 'Follow the blind', Helloween 'Keepers I', Iron Maiden 'Seventh son of a seventh son' and 'Somewhere in time', Wolf 's/t' (ok I lied on the last one).
Favorite bands: Rage, Gamma Ray, (old) Helloween, (old) Blind Guardian, Manowar, Skyclad, Dark Tranquillity, Rhapsody, (80s) Iron Maiden.
Favorite CDs: Helloween 'Walls of Jericho', Gamma Ray 'Land of the free', Rage 'The Missing Link', Iron Maiden 'Powerslave', 'Somewhere in Time' and 'Seventh son of a seventh son', Manowar 'Sign of the hammer', Skyclad 'Prince of the poverty line', Scanner 'Hypertrace'.
CDs that are overrated: (all albums by) Nevermore, Evergrey, Pain of Salvation.
CDs that are underrated: Abraxas 'The Liason' and 'Tomorrow's world', Dungeon 'Resurrection', Embargo 'The red tide', Lillian Axe 'Psychoschizophrenia', Salamandra 'Skarremar', Skymning 'Stormchoirs'.
Most prized metal posession: Don't have just one.
Reasons I joined the Metal CD Ratings site: To spread my opinions like a plague, to frustrate Clint with my slow rate of review writing.
Advantages to being a reviewer on the Metal CD Ratings site: Having an audience for my opinions, almost all overhead eliminated for review writing/publishing taken care of by Clint.
Disadvantages to being a reviewer on the Metal CD Ratings site: Feeling guilty about not writing enough reviews.
Bands I would like to see in concert: Rage, Dark Tranquillity, Skyclad.
People I would like to meet: Kai Hansen, Peavy Wagner.
What I would like to see for the future of metal: Enough of a bump in mainstream U.S. exposure for all the bands I like to be able to extensively tour the U.S. and play a show in my area.
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