Korn/Alice In Chains was an event I’d very much been looking forward to attending this year.

I hadn’t seen Korn since the 2006 Family Values tour, with Stone Sour and Deftones. Before that, I somewhat unwittingly saw them supporting their first album on a tour in support of Megadeth back in 1995.

Korn was one of the primary bands that filled my radio-void in the 1990s. Metal in general had gone underground then, and while I kept up with my favorite bans who kept recording, Korn bolstered aggressive music.

After they released one of their best albums “Take A Look In The Mirror,” lineup changes ensued, injecting a bit of turbulence into the enterprise. Much to their credit, they soldiered on. I kept up with them, but they fell a bit off my new-music radar. It was also about the same time I subscribed to SiriusXM, which served to redirect my attention to their Liquid Metal channel.

I saw them last night for the first time since that Family Values tour, and they didn’t disappoint.

Talk about redirecting my attention, bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, arguably the element of the band that sets them most apart, seemed to play a different bass every song. Not only that, one could be forgiven for wondering if he was pulling them out of a bag of Skittles. I felt like I was seeing rainbows by the end of the evening.

One thing Korn is not known for is solos, so it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what they were playing when the spotlight turned to guitarist James “Munky” Schaffer. By the time I realized they were playing a snippet from Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” which they recorded for their “Greatest Hits” album in 2004, they had launched into another cover which was readily apparent as soon as the double-bass kicked in; Metallica’s “One.”

Jonathan Davis’ enthusiasm to “still be doing this after twenty-five (expletive) years" was palpable, and his gratitude toward the fans, genuine. They made a powerful run through many Korn staples, and I’m glad I was there to take it in.

This night for me however, belonged to Alice in Chains.

The more time goes on, the more it seems labels aren’t as equally adhesive to all surfaces. This has become most apparent recently with the “death” metal band Obituary. Lumped in with that subgenre since its inception, I’ve learned their music has more life than just guttural vocals and blastbeats.

This is in the back of my mind more and more whenever I refer to AiC as easily my favorite band to “come out of the grunge movement of the 1990s.”

I liked many of the other bands to come from that era, but Sean Kinney’s wanderingly groovy drums, Jerry Cantrell’s harmonizing vocals, and Layne Staley put them in a different league.

Unfortunately, Staley died before I got off my ass to see them live.

Alas, I still had the albums, radio still played them, so they were never far away. In time, the aforementioned mothership of metal, SXM’s Liquid Metal, had drawn more of my attention away.

Then, they came back.

They brought on William DuVall to share vocals and shore up guitar duties, and released “Black Turns to Blue” in 2009. “Check My Brain,” which they played, was their primary release from that album. They released “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” a few years later, but it wasn’t until last year’s “Rainier Fog” that I was hooked and reeled back in.

Layne Staley’s shoes are impossible to fill, but thanks to Jerry Cantrell’s increasingly prominent vocal role in those years, a foundation was laid to continue on, and make no mistake, they have!

DuVall certainly has his own solo sound, which will be more prominent on his forthcoming solo album. But when he and Cantrell sync up, it sounds an AiC evolution. “Rainier” and “Dionsaurs” are, in my book, as good as any album they have recorded, most mesmerizingly captured by “Pretty Done” off the latter.

I have been so sucked back into their orbit that this spring I learned a whole album’s worth of Mike Starr/Mike Inez bass lines. Saturday, for the first time, I got to see them live. A buddy of mine who was also at the show texted me a tune or two into their set exclaiming “they sound amazing!” He was right.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they played seven songs from their iconic second album “Dirt,” opening with the deep cut “Junkhead,” and it reminded me of when Metallica’s current “Worldwired” tour came through town. During their set, they played about as many selections from their most commercially successful black album. I remember leaving thinking they could have dropped a few of those in favor of some other classic and/or deeper cuts from any other of their albums.

No such thought crossed my mind with AiC set.

They put on such a good show, that even my least favorite ‘hit’ of theirs, “Man in the Box,” turned out to be a pretty enjoyable crowd sing-a-long.

I’ll never get to see Layne Staley perform, just like I’ll never be able to see late, great Metallica bassist Cliff Burton play. It’s also highly unlikely I’ll ever be able to witness the original Black Sabbath lineup, much like another “Big 4” show is doubtful to happen.
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All things considered, after seeing Alice in Chains live, I’m probably as musically fulfilled as I’ll ever be.

In just over fifteen months, both my oldest daughters will likely have their drivers’ licenses.  In addition to driving themselves to school, football games, etc., they’ll also be able to get to a job.  Thank goodness we live in Texas, because they’ll face one less obstacle to finding employment than do kids in other states; a minimum wage prohibited by law from rising higher than the federal $7.25 level.

In their constant drive to shield all manner of folks from the responsibilities of adulthood, democrats in Washington want to more than double this price floor.  Even though many starting wages here in San Antonio are above the current minimum, they are well below the $15 proposal.  Needless to say, this proposal would shut out many teenagers who might not be grandfathered in by current jobs.  On the flip side, it would attract some to an easier gig than what they’re currently having to do for roughly the same pay. 

This perversion reflects the left’s general (mis)understanding of economics and incentives, not to mention human nature.  So convinced are they of the virtues of this policy that they dismiss job losses of as much as nearly 4 million, according to a recent CBO report, as “worth whatever the cost might be.”  The cynic could be forgiven for seeing this as a step closer to total government dependence when combined with a universal basic income, their supposed solution to the imminent takeover of our society by robots. 

Business’ constant drive to keep costs low in order to stay afloat, and by extension maintain a payroll, has prompted many to utilize such automation, which ironically makes these price controls obsolete.  To the extent that it makes jobs vanish, it’s a quiet disappearance via attrition: a worker leaves, but is not replaced.  Bigger companies can afford to experiment and deploy cost-saving technology.  As a result, a hike in the minimum wage is an affordable, temporary uptick against revenues.  It is also an assist from the government at keeping smaller competitors at bay.   

As a result, some companies are indifferent to it.  Others, not so much. 

During a debate last year about the Alamo City’s proposed paid-sick-leave ordinance, a lady told me she already offers it to her employees, and that her rivals should be compelled to do the same in order to “level the playing field.”
 
When Amazon announces that they “intend to … gain congressional support for an increase in the federal minimum wage” to the same $15 level they just granted to its employees, the scale is different, but the principle is the same.  Politicians laying out plans to “revitalize … rural America” should know better when Walmart urges “Congress to boost the federal minimum wage.”  It’s reminiscent of when golf courses tried to “Tiger-Proof” their holes by lengthening them to a distance manageable only by … Tiger Woods.   

Smaller companies are less able to absorb higher labor costs.  At some point, the owner cannot support herself and her family and therefore has to abandon her venture and find paid employment at a bigger firm.  Meanwhile, her former employees join the increased supply of labor clamoring for work at the bigger company that now needs fewer employees thanks to the aforementioned technology.  This is how monopolies AND monopsonies (sole buyer of labor) are born.   

This is not at all an argument against automation, which itself is a sign of progress and prosperity.  Often times a small business needs manual help to get off the ground.  It is doubtful, judging by their modest-looking storefronts, that local businesses can do so with anything more than basic technology i.e. cash register, debit card machine, etc.  They need the flexibility to find just the right people at freely agreed-upon wages, who are happy to get their foot in the door.  This is as much a case of jobs that will never be created, as it is those that we see today eventually disappearing. 
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As it is, the only doors my daughters have wedged open is mine and that of their mothers.  I’m happy to keep paying them to tend to the lawn so I can do other things.  I would however, appreciate the workout from pushing a mower around lawn if they landed a job somewhere, though I suspect my wife would soon hire a housekeeper to make up for the lost mopping services.  In the end, that’s lower unemployment by three people.