Welcome to the Dragonflame

Since today I got a couple of minutes spare time, i decided to spit out a few opinions about my new phone (the Sony-Ericsson) vs my old one (the LG). I will not do a lot of brackground checking since I’m writing from recent experience, as a daily user, of the two phones.

First of all, this is my second experience with Sony-Ericsson, I had a previous SE phone which was also my first color-screen mobile phone. It was a nifty little thing and, ironically, I replaced it with a clamshell older LG because it was stolen from me. Now it’s SE’s paybacktime I guess, but what kind of payback? continue reading…

It surely has been a long time since I listened to extreme metal (that term which encompasses death/doom/dark/thrash/black metal, describing an very agressive style of playing) and for that I decided to conduct a ‘memorial’ experience by going to see the romanian stop of the “Filthfest Tour” featuring Turisas and Moonspell and headlining Cradle of Filth (surely the ‘filth’ in filthfest must have given away Dani Filth).

Although, for all good reasons, Moonspell should have been headliners given that they are the more mature and musically inspired band of the two, that did not happen and in the end I was cringing at the sounds exhaled by a very dynamic but comically noisy screaming thing (Dani Filth aka ‘the little screaming thing’ or LST from now on). continue reading…

The thunderball of movies made from graphic novels is rolling ever since “V” came to the big screen and Batman was reinvented. We’re not talking “Looney tunes” here, not the old “Batman” movies or the caricatures of the second generation “Batman” movies, nor the feel-good “Superman” or “Spiderman”.

We’re talking message here, we’re talking deep, dark and gritty. We’re talking about a real ‘what if’ question, what if superheroes existed? How would they be? what would the human side do? What would they fight for? How would they feel? While “V for Vendetta” packs a strong political message alongside a good dose of humour and action, “X-Men” came with some interesting but inssuficiently explored moral question. But playing ‘catch-up’ came the third generation of Batman movies and now “Watchmen” with a bigger picture about the people behind the masks, the people behind the costumes. Batman with his ghosts and fears was a comic-book masterpiece, but how is “Watchmen”? continue reading…

We all know what happened last week in Chisinau. The students rose against election rigged by the communist regime, they were beaten down, no help came from abroad so the communists were free to seed terror over terror against the people of Moldova.

We all know that and because we know it, I’m not going to talk about it. But I am going to make a small, insignificant remark: does all that seem familiar to you? It is familiar to me. I’ve seen it before. Almost 20 years ago, a group of neo-communists, falsely calling themselves the National Salvation Front won rigged elections in Bucharest. They were the same people one could see alongside feared dictator Ceausescu in newspaper pictures, culminating with one of Ceausescu’s right hand men: Ion Iliescu. continue reading…

It’s going to be a hot summer here in Romania as the announced concerts only prove it. Starting back 4 years ago, more and more heavy musical names are visiting our country and festivals like Sibiu’s Artmania and the B’est Fest in Bucharest are gaining a lot of momentum in many musical genres.

This summer, we are going to see more of the heavy names and think that I’m only listing those that I either like or simply respect (even if I may not like their music). So, here are the artists: continue reading…

So I’m back from Debrecen where my question about Nightwish’s new front woman finally were answered.

I must begind by saying that when it comes to music and songs I like, I’m pretty much like most people: any deep change within the bands I like causes much fear, anger, grief. When Marco Hietala replaced Sami Vanska as the bass player, I was very upset and the change in sound that came with that made me never look at Nightwish with the same fondness I had ever since I first listened to Tarja’s voice, back in 1998. continue reading…