IN: Mayday Parade is an American rock band from Tallahassee, Florida. Their debut EP Tales Told by Dead Friends was released in 2006, and sold over 50,000 copies without any label support. In July 2007, Mayday Parade released their debut album A Lesson in Romantics.

On July 24, 2014, the band announced they will be making a fifth studio album to be released in 2015. A tour during late 2014 also happened, entitled The Honeymoon Tour, with supporting acts Tonight Alive, PVRIS and Major League. According to an issue of Alternative Press, the band is currently recording with Mike Sapone (Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Sainthood Reps) and was scheduled to be released sometime in the fall of 2015. The band also tweeted "MAYDAY PARADE 5 IS DONE" in late February of that year, indicating that they had finished their 5th studio album. On July 17, 2015, Mayday Parade announced that their new album Black Lines would be released on October 9 through Fearless. At the second annual Alternative Press Music Awards on July 22, it was announced the Alternative Press Tour would be revived, with Mayday Parade headlining and supporting acts Real Friends, This Wild Life, and As It Is. Mayday Parade were announced as part of the line-up for Slam Dunk Festival on the 10 February 2016, alongside American rock band Yellowcard and more. The official music video for "Let's Be Honest" featured veteran actor and musician Michael Jason Allen as Capt. Giorgio Chavez. Mayday Parade played the 2016 Vans Warped Tour, alongside Yellowcard, We the Kings, New Found Glory and Sum 41. A 10th anniversary edition of Tales Told by Dead Friends, featuring new packaging and an additional track "The Problem with the Big Picture Is That It's Hard to See", was released in November 2016. Following this, a 10th anniversary edition of A Lesson in Romantics was released in March 2017, featuring demos. Producer Kenneth Mount criticized the band on Twitter for not giving Lancaster credit in commentary, "I'm slightly confused why mayday parades commentary for lesson in romantics never mentions Jason Lancaster at all, voice of 50% of the album...Jason also recorded all his vocals naked for a lesson in romantics, that should totally make the commentary. I've waited ten years for that".
QUESTION: How did the album do?
IN: Henry Hill, Jr. was born on June 11, 1943 in Manhattan, New York, to Henry Hill, Sr., an Irish immigrant and electrician, and Carmela Costa Hill, a Sicilian. The working-class family consisted of Henry and his eight siblings who grew up in Brownsville, a poorer area of the East New York section of Brooklyn. From an early age, Hill admired the local mobsters who socialized across the street from his home, including Paul Vario, a capo in the Lucchese crime family. In 1955, when Hill was 11 years old, he wandered into the cabstand across the street looking for a part-time after-school job.

Hill testified against his former associates to avoid a possible execution by his crew or going to prison for his crimes. His testimony led to 50 convictions. Jimmy Burke was given 20 years in prison for the 1978-79 Boston College point shaving scandal, involving fixing Boston College basketball games. Burke was also later sentenced to life in prison for the murder of scam artist Richard Eaton. Burke died of lung cancer while serving his life sentence, on April 13, 1996, at the age of 64. Paul Vario received four years for helping Henry Hill obtain a no-show job to get him paroled from prison. Vario was also later sentenced to ten years in prison for the extortion of air freight companies at JFK Airport. He died of respiratory failure on November 22, 1988, at age 73 while incarcerated in the FCI Federal Prison in Fort Worth. Hill, his wife Karen, and their two children (Gregg and Gina) entered the U.S. Marshals' Witness Protection Program in 1980, changed their names, and moved to undisclosed locations in Omaha, Nebraska; Independence, Kentucky; Redmond, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. In Seattle, Hill hosted backyard cookouts for his neighbors, and on one occasion, while under the influence of a combination of liquor and drugs, he revealed his true identity to his guests. To the ire of the federal marshals, they were forced to relocate him one final time to Sarasota, Florida. There, a few months had passed, and Hill repeated the same breach of security, causing the government to finally expel him from the Federal Witness Protection Program.
QUESTION: Was he safe while in witness protection?
IN: Masami Akita (Qiu Tian Chang Mei , Akita Masami, born December 19, 1956), better known by his stage name Merzbow (merutsubau, Merutsubau), is a Japanese noise musician. He is best known for his style of harsh, confrontational noise exemplified on his 1996 release, Pulse Demon. Since 1980, he has released over 400 recordings, and has collaborated with various artists.

During the European tour in September-October 1989, Merzbow could only bring simple and portable gear; this led to the harsh noise style Merzbow became known for in the 1990s. Cloud Cock OO Grand (1990) was the first example of this new style, Merzbow's first digital recording (on DAT), and the first recording made for the CD format. It also includes live material recorded during the tour. But when I started live in late 1980s I didn't like to use tape on stage. I like only live electronics. So, my studio works changed to more live composition style. I'm still using many tapes in studio works, but difference is I treat tapes and instruments. Before, I used tapes as overdubbing concept. But now tapes are crashing together, no static overdub. I found that style on Cloud Cock OO Grand. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Merzbow began to be influenced by death metal and grindcore. Recordings from this time are mostly recorded at extreme volume, some mastered at levels far beyond standard (Noisembryo, Pulse Demon). In 1994, Akita acquired a vintage EMS synthesizer. From 1996, plans were made to release a "10 (or maybe 12)" CD box set on Extreme Records. In 2000, Extreme Records released the Merzbox, a fifty CD set of Merzbow records, twenty of them not previously released. Throughout most of the 1990s, Merzbow live was a trio with Reiko A. on electronics and Bara on voice and dance. Masami Akita occasionally played drums for Hijokaidan during the early-mid 1990s. In the early 1990s, Masami Akita composed the soundtracks to numerous kinbaku videos by Fuji Planning (Bu Er Qi Hua , Fuji Kikaku) and seppuku-themed videos by their sub-label Right Brain. Akita also directed Lost Paradise (Shi Le Yuan Cheng Ma Fu Nu Fu Qie ri, Shitsurakuen: Jobafuku onna harakiri) for Right Brain. Some of this music was included on Music for Bondage Performance and Music for Bondage Performance 2, co-credited to Right Brain Audile. Director Ian Kerkhof would use a Merzbow track for his 1992 film La sequence des barres paralleles, and Akita composed original music for Kerhof's 1994 film The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man. Kerkhof made the documentary Beyond Ultra Violence: Uneasy Listening by Merzbow in 1998. Akita also created music for Ilppo Pohjola's Asphalto (1998) and Routemaster (2000).
QUESTION:
What items did he use to create his music during this era?