Kai: Hi guys and gals,
have you ever heard about the “Musikmesse Frankfurt”? It’s one of the biggest music fairs in the world (maybe THE biggest). 2011 almost 1500 companies from 47 countries have presented their products there and it’s kinda a Mecca for a musicians :) So, this year was the first time I was able to go there and I can tell you it was more than impressive. Started from the entrance I had problems to keep my mouth closed coz I was getting a “Wow”-feeling that stayed for the upcoming 8 hours.

the entrance

the venue

Kai: The fair takes place in several halls , so there is one hall for recording equipment, one hall with guitars, one for drums and percussion and so on… Beside the recording stuff of course I was very stoked with the guitar section. Tons of guitars and amps and most of them you can try out by yourself. Well, maybe I should stop to write too much about it and you should just have a look at the pics to get a small insight of the fair ;)

guitars, tiny usb guitars and an usb drumikits

impressive stand of EMG-pickups

Tommy Bollin (當墓林)

guitarists at the Gibson lounge

left: Jim Marshalls business car / right: guitars for In Arcane :p

left: 7-string basses / right: spacy guitars with glowing strings

ESP guitars

drum kits

spacy basses and more glowing guitars

the guitarists dream house :D

funny hair style

left: real heavy metal music instrumens / right: guitar handbags

left: the fair tower / right: a hare straight in Frankfurt

tips for a new interior?

spacy lightshows

Kai: Btw. After 3 hours I had a first cramp in my mouth haha *joking*. Honestly, it’s almost an overload of impressions if you try to go through the whole fair in one day and keep everything in mind what you see. Visit it on 2 days would be more relaxed for sure. So I took a longer rest at a sunny yard inside the venue and just relaxed a bit. After 8 hours of walking and music noise I was happy anyway to just sit in a car and get back home to continue with the Parasite Inc. album recordings. We are still inside the recoding process but we are one step closer again to be “Back for War”. So, see you soon with some news about it and since then stay heavy!

Thank you so much Kai, you rock!!!

It’s an absolutely pleasure to release this blog for me… 4 kick-ass metal platoons from my support bands gathered for playing gigs – Deathtrip and Full Metal Attack, and guys from Parasite Inc. reported that special nights.

Kai: So here we go for the Kumi show ;) After we had already met the guys from Bloodspot one week before at a local gig in our hometown, we left Aalen on November 5th with a bunch of metal, a good mood, some pieces of cake to move on to the show with them and with My Decadence in Limburg. The driving there itself was… I don’t know, guess it was funny? (I was mostly sleeping xD)

Kai: Well, we reached the location in the evening and after we had dropped our equipment near the stage we went to Bloodspots rehearsal room to have some food and a beer. The first band I saw this evening was Mandragora. Not Heavy Metal but um, Heavy Crossover? However, if you like kinda Heavy Rock stuff you should check them out ;).

Benni: Yeah, check them out! Even if you don’t like that kind of music, their live performance is really great and the lead guitarist behaves like a young Angus Young on stage! Awesome to watch!

Kai: The next band was My Decadence. I was eager to watch them, coz I only knew them from CD and from their videos on Youtube so far. Ladies and gentlemen, that guys bring their sound truly to the stage. They were playing an awesome show with really tight playing and the venue got filled with more and more head-banging people.

Benni: I too was impressed by My Decadence. I especially liked the way their two singers sang, uhm, screamed! Anyway, everything was spot on, tight and it was a very well performed show.

Kai: Right after My Decadence the guys from Bloodspot entered the stage then and – what shall I say – for me, they are such a live blast! As a surprise they played a new song. A kinda slow and heavy one but makes your balls not less exploding. Exactly like the rest of the songs haha :D. What a kick ass show! If there is one band I had to suggest to someone as a must-see-live-band, I would say Bloodspot now ;).

Benni: Nothing more to add. Bloodspot definitely is one of the best live band I’ve ever seen. You have to smile constantly because you really see how much fun they have performing live. And the new song indeed is a really, really good one!

Kai: Those who survived the Bloodspot massacre (were not so much hahaha) then screwed their heads off to our set. We had a great stage sound and I guess the people liked the songs. We also played a new song called “In The Dark” which we didn’t practice much before, so it sounded a bit like that. But all in all it worked out and it was a lot of fun to play :) The rest of the evening we had a relaxed time in the Bloodspot rehearsal room again.

Day 2

Kai: After a kinda slow day we left Limburg and moved on to the next show in Cologne, this time with Legacy of Vydar, Bloodspot and Mandragora. The venue was a small club with a small stage and a much smaller backstage area. 4 bands + equipment = cozy time ;).

Kai:  Well, when I first saw the guys from Vydar, my first question I asked myself was kinda “what the hell have they gotten to eat to get that tall?”. They not only look so tall on their pictures :D. Unfortunately their bassist couldn’t play with them this concert, so their sound was a bit thin and had too much highs. On the other side it maybe was a good thing ;)? Because that way I was able to enjoy the great work on the guitars and drums. Also I had no idea how they played that gig with 6 people on that small stage ;). Great band! ‘Nuff said.

Benni: Well I found it kinda funny to hear and see all the songs live after spending quite some time on the mastering of the Legacy of Vydar album. I really know the songs by rote because of that. I was especially impressed by the drummer who played everything exactly like he did on the album and it was really tight!

Kai: Btw. the bad catch on that gig was: Almost no audience. So the bands played mostly for the bands only or maybe for some bugs in that club. Anyway it was not less fun to play, so we had another good show although we felt that we had to struggle a bit more with the sound on that stage than in Limburg.

Bloodspot finished this concert with another live punch and it really was a honor for us to meet with all that great guys and musicians. We hope to share the stage with you once again ;) Thank you all for the great time.

Guys from Parasite Inc., Bloodspot and Legacy Of Vydar were together in a picture!（some of the guys couldn’t make it in a pic somehow, btw.）

Thank you so much for Kai and Benni for reporting about those great nights! I also want to say thank you for Bloodspot guys who named Full Metal Attack as Kumi-show :) All you guys rules!

Kumi666

Kai: Hey guys,
as you maybe can remember in the last blog we announced a change in the line-up: Benne left the band in Mai and for luck we could find a replacement in Kevin within a short time that seems to be a lucky stroke not only for him ;).

After he could get into the whole songs after a very short time we were ready and curious to our first two gigs on September 24th and October 15th with the renewed line-up. So, what we already could recognize during the rehearsals has become also live to a really good confirmation: The band syncs and we feel as a good working band again! Strike!

Kai: Btw. the gig on October 15th was a funny one because the stage that we had to play on was an old wagon at an old trains station (So, we now know the minimum spec for the space we need on a stage^^) and at the bonus song (“Hatefilled”) my guitar string got torn apart with my tremolo actions, ouch. That never happened to me before and for luck it happened at the bonus song. At least we could play the song with only one guitar and the audience was merciful with it …phew.

Kai: Anyway it was totally fun with a great audience and like at the first gig, Kevin played his stuff like he has been in the band for years now. We are in a really good mood and looking positive into the future with the upcoming recordings for the new album next year and also to the November gigs with Bloodspot and to the “Kumi Show” ; ) with Legacy of Vydar, Bloodspot and us. So, see you soon.

I’m very glad that my support bands play gigs on the same stage together. Thank you so much guys who named the gig FULL METAL ATTACK as Kumi-show BTW, haha :D

I’m very glad to release this blog that I finally materialized this idea- “The gears of the metal bands ～ Show me your stuff ! “ with Kai (vocals, guitars) and Benni (drums) from Parasite Inc.. They introduced me their lovely stuff. So, check it out!

Kai: Hey guys, Benni and I have been asked a few times about the equipment that we use. So here it is a small introduction of it. To create all the noises I ordinary only use my Jackson USA RR1 Rhoads. It’s a Neck-Through-Body guitar with 22 frets and a original Floyd Rose for the more weird sounds and effects. Originally it was armed with a Seymour Duncan JB-TB4 humbucker on the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Jazz-SH2N on the neck but I replaced both with Seymour Duncan Blackouts a few years ago.

Kai: To give that guitar the right sound I am using a rack unit with the following parts: For power supply I use a cheap Samson Powerstrip PS10. Below it, there’s the Rocktron Xpression for a bit EQing and for noise reduction and finally the sound is done by an Engl E 530 preamp in combination with a Peavey 60/60 power-amp. About the Engl I can tell you that it is maybe the best tube preamp you can get for that money – especially compared to other tube preamps.

I present Summer Breeze Open Air 2011 the final day blog by Kai from Parasite Inc.! Here we go!

Summer Breeze Open Air 2011 Day4 – The final day:

Kai:　 What a final hot evening and it started with a lot of fire fountains at As I Lay Dying.

A lot of flames at As I Lay Dying

Kai:　 Seems they have a proclivity for it: Fire fountains at “Within Destruction” and at “An Ocean between us” and…. at every song they played including a lot of crowd-surfers and the biggest WOD this year – plain unbeatable. Their show made me really forget about that I have missed Benighted in the afternoon… shame on me. I should have more Ipanemas xD.

Kai:　 Well, next one was a band I have seen last time in 2004 together with In Flames and Devildriver: Caliban… turned myself around 180 degrees and enjoyed another great show.

Caliban rocking the crowd

Kai:　 Anyway I had to leave them earlier coz I also wanted to see Obscura that played unfortunately at the same time… awesome German Technical Death Metal and amazing playing skills but the vocals were so loud that I felt my ears started bleeding and I had to leave the party tent after 2 songs. Met with Basti again and btw: Anyobody hungry to pretzel?

view to the party tent and the metal market

anybody hungry to pretzel?

Obscura in action

Kai:　 I decided to have another walk through the metal market while listening to Tarja from the far and prepared for my last band I wanted to see: TYR.

the party tent under under a beautiful sunset

passed the entrance controls to the stage area

Kai:　 I thought Turisas made a party? TYR overcome…. the whole tent was going straight and sang to every of their songs. Great show even I am not really familiar with their music ;).

TYR in the party tent

Kai:　 Finally I had a last walk over the camping-site with the far thunder of Hatebreed at the Main Stage and it looked like every year then: Destroyed people and destroyed camping-site : Summer Breeze 2011 another Metal Blast… see you next year again!

a great metal festival ends again

Basti (l.) was working at Summer Breeze 2011 and took some great photos of Arch Enemy. Kai (r.) stayed in the front of the metal-battle-field 4 days in a row and brought me an awesome live reports

the evidence of an entry into the
battle-field of Summer Breeze 2011

How did you feel about those live reports from Summer Breeze 2011 4days?

I would love to say thanks so much to Kai who brought me his great experience there, and to Basti who took some amazing photos of Arch Enemy while he’s working there, Benni stayed at the camping-site and enjoyed whole festival, and Kevin who became a new-member of Parasite Inc. played his final show with Hackneyed, those great guys may be more active in their brighter future with gigs and maybe a new album in 2012???

I have much expectation for their upcoming activity ! Stay metal and keep it brutal!!!

Aug. 2011 -Kumi666

high-speed killer melodic death album
“Parasite Inc.” is available