Helios Creed -- Hmm, so has nobody caught this latest tour?

I'm seeing him tonight at Arlene Grocery, he's opening for friend's band, Darediablo

there's a write-up at the Chicago Reader.

You're not going to BOTH shows? I saw his standard set list for this tour and, let me tell ya, it's going to be swell!

I wouldn't mind seeing him again -- he sorta has a one note thing going with most of his music out of Chrome but he's still pretty fun.

I was expecting something more "avant-garde." It was like, Sabbath covers? Is this the same group?

Helios Creed is a man, not a group, and it sounds exactly like he's always sounded. He wrote a new song that stole the entire Sweetleaf music and changed the words, which is not really surprising.

What amused me was seeing Darediablo critiquing him in the hallway. I actually heard them say, "It's octave distorition" and "He's got this whole Santana thing going on." Too funny.

It was nice to see the recent loss of part of his finger didn't affect his playing.

i'm assuming it was on his picking hand rather than his fretting hand?

Fretting hand. Left middle finger.

Hear him talk about his finger.
http://www.helios-creed.com/media/ontheplane.mp3

He's a funny guy, strangely hard to look in the eye, despite the fact that he's really nice.

wish i could but i live on the moon, HELIOS PLEASE COME TO THE MOON

hehe i want him to read that, i bet he'll think it was for serious

Jesus, Scaredy, okay! Helios roxx, I am all gay! I just was trying to say it doesn't sound anything like his "guitarrorists" track! Okay!

Why do you care if Darediablo was talking about his pedals and who he sounds like? Does that really bother you? They are musicians you know!

Oh, I didn't realize your expectations were based on a Guitarrorists track. Sounds a little different live, but his "avant-garde"-ness has basically been the same since the early days of Chrome. I don't think it's that he tries to be weird, I think it's more that it's meant to be druggie music. Just groovy stoner rock.

And Darediablo's comments were amusing to me because they seemed incredibly ignorant and arrogant.

*seemed* being the key word. They might be huge HC fans, but reducing it down to those 2 statements seems pretty wrong if you know anything about the guy. Also, I was being direct, wasn't trying to be confrontational up there, so I was surprised to see the "Jesus, Scaredy, okay!" remarks.

"reducing it down to those 2 statements seems pretty wrong"

Exactly, I mean you heard two things in a hallway and have determined that DD are ignorant and arrogant? What's so offensive about talking about octave pedals and Santana in the first place? Those guys LOVE Santana!!

Because it's not just octave distortion and he doesn't have a whole Santana thing going on. Their tone seemed to be one of dismissal. But, maybe I missed the first part of the conversation where the drummer asked, "That's so cool, what is it about that that makes it sound so cool?"

Well, maybe they thought he sucked.

And in that case, there would be the ignorance and arrogance I was talking about!

Umm, not to start any kind of localized battle, but as a lurker on the board and Darediablo member I thought I'd offer my $0.02 --

We have plenty of respect for Helios, and I don't think any of us were standing out in the hallway performing a reductio on his guitar tone, but I could be wrong. We did the double-gig weekend and put together both nights with Tone Deaf Touring around his performances, and we certainly didn't put in the effort so we could stand around and be blase about his guitar tone.

I thought his Saturday show was better than his Friday show, and told him as much. The whole night was just a little more together for everyone including us on Saturday, and not running 75 minutes late.

Not trying to start anything, just saying that we're not terribly ignorant or arrogant, and if any of us sounded that way you might have heard something out of context. (Although, just guessing about the other guys, "That sounds a lot like Santana" probably would not be meant as a compliment.)

Haha well you guys are wrong, Santana rules!

I didn't like what I saw of the Helios show. As another friend of mine put it, it was as if he played one stompy metal-riff song for an hour (though if you really like that song I guess that could be great). If he'd taken longer solos I would have liked it more, he plays great solos.

Dude can solo.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I really didn't care. Thought it was funny. Don't even know that it was the band, could've been 3 fans in the hall. I just saw a Darediablo shirt and figured it was the band. Didn't even care enough to go back and see if it really was DD when they were on stage. I cared enough to tell everyone I was there with (all were highly amused). The extent of my "outrage" would be summed up as "You fules!" to whoever said it in a joking manner.