My name is Agrippa, though not my real name it’s the pseudonym I use as a musician for my band Agrippa93 as well my solo project Agrippa’s Laboratory. My involvement in these 2 spans through many roles including songwriting, arrangements, lyricist, vocals, guitar, bass and bass programming, synths, sequencers, piano, drum programming, audio engineer, producer, promoter, management, graphic artist, web designer, and many others. You can check out the extensive catalog of music from these on the Music Catalog page of this site or click play on the music player in the right column on any page and listen while you’re reading. Read more »

It was exciting for us to be playing somewhere that wasn’t the Webster Underground. Don’t get me wrong – we love to play the Webster, but it’s nice to venture out to new venues. Not only did none of us ever hear of The Wet Bar, but everyone we told about the show had no clue about the place either. Even people who live in the Norwich/New London area had never heard of it.

Master, an established promoter in the CT Metal scene, invited us to play that night with his band Apocalypse Highway and a couple other bands. Unfortunately for Master, an accident left him with several injuries preventing him from performing that night, however for the rest of the bands, he kept the show scheduled. The 2 other bands performing were Eyes of Wrath and This Time Down.

Read more »

Cynthia Mislivets - The Metal Cyndicate

A few of weeks ago Agrippa93 entered the Norwich Comcast public access TV studio as guests of the show, Metal Cyndicate, hosted by Connecticut metal enthusiast, Cynthia Mislivets and produced by Rapid Freeman. Both are fellow Pagans and welcomed us warmly to their show. Each week Cyn features a Connecticut band playing a set in studio, interviewing them, and plugs away any shows or events they may have on the calendar.

As always for everything, we showed up early. I’m a stickler for punctuality, so to me early is on time and on time is late. Cyn and Rapid kindly let us in the studio ahead of schedule to set up all of our gear and settle in with a sound check. We had plenty of time to do so, which made the whole experience very relaxing, giving us time to talk with both Cyn and Rapid to get to know them better.

Read more »

June 5th Fear Factory Show

With the show only a few days away we are getting things set and ready to go for the big show. Whether we are opening on the main stage of the Webster Theater or the small stage of the Webster Underground, we are being limited to only a 20 minute set, which just doesn’t seem like enough to deliver our music. Our normal set length with our full compliment of finished songs runs roughly 35-40 minutes when you factor in breaks between for tuning and crowd chatter, includes Evocation, City of Pyramids, Forever Wasting Time, Among the Ruins, Pale Horse, and The Edge of Sanity. Two would have to be cut from the list to fit the 20 minute requirement for Saturday night’s performance. Read more »

Property of Lucasfilms. Please don't sue me.

BEWARE: This is NOT music related. Star Wars fans continue reading…

Beneath the surface of being the vocalist for the progressive industrial metal band, Agrippa93, I’m also die hard Star Wars fan. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, so it’s time to take a break from writing about music and plunge into my inner geekdom to pull out some very fond childhood (and adult) memories.

I’m not the “fanatical collect everything and constantly criticize George Lucas Trilogy snob”, but I have been a fan since I was 4 when Star Wars hit the theaters for the 1st time and ever since. Even stayed loyal through the dark ages when the only pieces available were the Droids and Ewoks cartoons and that horrible live action Ewoks made-for-TV movie, and that wasn’t much to grab.

Property of Lucasfilms

The Trilogy Snob is a special breed of Star Wars fan than only accepts the 1st 3 released film (Episodes IV, V, and VI) as true canon. They believe that George Lucas should have never made the prequels and  that all EU (Expanded Universe) including books and comics are garbage (This very similar to American Euro-soccer snobs who refuse to support the US National team and belittle any US soccer league). Some will go to even more extreme views and refuse to acknowledge any but the unenhanced versions of the 3 original films. I’m at the complete opposite side of that view, which could be referred to as Star Wars liberalism, where is I see every new enhancement and new story as a contribution to the Star Wars universe created by Lucas.

Even with all the little quirks like “wooden acting” (probably due to direction) and cheesiness moments including Jar Jar, (Hey, Jedi had freakin’ little teddy bears) I still love all 3 of the prequels and even count Revenge of the Sith as my favorite of all the films. Sith ended on an even bigger downer than Empire Strikes Back. The hero has fallen to the dark side, many have been killed and evil prevails. The prequels are what they are and no amount of whining and moaning about what they could have been is going to change that.

In addition to the 6 Star Wars films the latest addition to the Lucas canon is the Clone Wars animated series, which has just ended it’s 2nd season. This series takes place between Episode II: Attack of the Clones and the conclusion of this era Episode III: Revenge of the Sith during a time in Star Wars history called the Clone Wars, 1st mentioned by Obi Wan Kenobi in Episode IV: A New Hope. For many kids, this is their 1st encounter with the Lucas franchise.

Many fans I know dismiss this as simply a kids cartoon not to be taken seriously without even having seen a single episode. As having seen every show since season 1, episode 1 I can safely say that this series holds up to the standards of the Star Wars franchise adding new layers to the foundations the films laid down. Season 2 has really gone the extra mile in digging into the Star Wars universe and making it part of the whole story, even bringing background stories into light with characters like Boba Fett.

Property of Lucasfilms

Back to the original intent of this post before I started rambling off about fan types and canon. Empire Strikes Back is 30 years old this year and it’s time to reflect on that. 30 years ago at age 7 I sat in the front row of the theater waiting eagerly for the next installment of Star Wars, which seemed like forever to get here. I remember clenching the ends of the arm rests with my hands nervous about what was to unfold. This was long before the internet was accessible for anyone to do a quick google search for spoilers.

I remember being shocked at Han Solo uttering a swear (“Then I’ll see you in HELL!”) in the scene where he rides his tauntaun out into the cold blizardy weather that is the planet Hoth. The big scene came up where Luke has crashed onto Dagobah to meet the great Jedi Master Yoda, of which was meant to be a surprise that it was a little green muppet that sounded an awful lot like the cookie monster. No one in their right mind would guess that it would be him.

Property of Lucasfilms

I was unfortunate to be sitting next to some blabber mouth kid who had already seen the movie and somehow felt empowered by ruining the surprise for me. I get a nudge from this kid, who I didn’t know to begin with, and he leans over and says to me, “That IS Yoda.” That fuck head killed that Empire moment for me along with the shocking revelation that Darth Vader is Luke’s father. If you are reading this and you were that kid, please email me so we can meet up. I’d like to beat you senselessly within inches from death, wait months for you to heal, and then do it again.

Property of Lucasfilms

As with A New Hope, Kenner released whole bunch of truly awesome toys to go along with the movie. For Christmas that year the only thing I wanted was that snow speeder and my mom must have gone to every store in Connecticut looking for one, finally locating probably the last one on earth and it was missing the box and some of its parts. Regardless, she got it for me along with a bunch of other Star Wars toys to fill out my collection, which made my Christmas that year.

Preserving Star Wars toys for collectors’ value was not even a thought at the time and I played hard with them. Like most kids at the time it didn’t take long for the Obi Wan and Darth Vader figures to lose their capes and break their light sabers (nothing a colored toothpick couldn’t cure). By the time Empire toys were out the new Luke Skywalker figure did away with the sliding saber action on favor of a separate piece that he could hold (still yellow?) and be easily lost.

Among other Empire toys I had the Hoth battle scene with exploding base pieces and collapsing walls, the Wampa, the tauntaun with the slit belly to stuff Luke in (Open Belly Rescue Feature), and every figure that came out that year including some of the more obscure ones like, IG-88, Ugnaught, and 4-LOM. Missing from my toy box was the much sought after AT-AT walker and the Slave I with carbnoit frozen Han Solo.

Property of Lucasfilms

Back to the movie itself. The Empire Strikes Back is an iconic film that has given us such huge pop culture references like “Luke, I am your father”, which everyone in the world knows. It was a leap forward from A New Hope in that it defied the sequel curse of not living up to the original. The director pushed the story through the characters giving them more depth while still maintaining the look and feel of the Star Wars universe. The story ends on a down note with evil prevailing, a huge risk at the time for a hollywood movie, and most fans claim it as their favorite of the Trilogy, because of that.

Empire Strikes Back has been around for 30 years now and the movie still holds up today. Although some purests will argue, over the years the digital enhancements Lucas made to it and the others only  made the experience of watching them over and over again much better and even palatable for modern 1st time viewers who would see the old special effects outdated and distracting.

New Song: Our next new release on deck is The Edge of Sanity, which has gone through quite a bit of changes from it’s original state. The entire midsection interlude time change was eliminated to maintain better flow to the song keeping it as basic as possible, however it still maintains its heavy driving feel. I just recently recorded all of the main vocals for it leaving only vocal dubbing to do before the song hits the mixing phase.

Read more »

-

The last time I etched out a moment to write here was a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean nothing is going on. I try to make it a point to post at least 3 times a week, however when things are extra busy, something’s got to give. Here’s what’s going on now for Agrippa93:

Upcoming Shows: Right now we are in show promotion full force for our 2 upcoming gigs. The 1st of these is on June 5th opening for Fear Factory and Prong at the Webster Theater in Hartford, CT. There’s a possibility that we will be picked to play the main stage instead of the usual small Webster Underground stage designated for local the bands. Both rooms will be open for the show and no bands will overlap, which means all the bands playing can gather a decent crowd between main stage setups. Read more »

“He who kills Death becomes Death.”

This week’s A93 Song of the Week is the new release, Pale Horse. Listen to and learn more about the song here.

“Standing at the edge, stepping out and falling down.”

- Agrippa93: The Edge of Sanity

Alex and Will played with their other band Imperium Mortis at a show in Danbury, Connecticut last Thursday, which is our normally schedule practice time. Alex did some networking with the person running the gig, which will lead to us getting a show there in the near future. Danbury is quite a drive and far enough that most of our local fans in the Hartford area wont make the trip, however it will be a chance for farther exposure in that part of the state and more padding on our press kit. Read more »

With Agrippa93 in non-stop fast forward motion there’s hardly enough time for anything else these days. This also means that  my side project, Agrippa’s Laboratory, has suffered from neglect in recent months. My last A-Lab release was in November 2009 with Face Down and Ear Deep and haven’t touched anything since then. There is still plenty of material in the works that’s just sitting there on the shelf collecting dust until I can catch a breather and get back to them.

Currently on deck waiting to see the light of day is a song called the Temple of Horus, which runs almost 8 minutes long. There’s some additional guitar work that needs to be recorded along with some arrangement adjustments to make it a better flowing song, but it is coming to a close. Read more »