Sunday, June 29, 2008

METALSPLOITATION! - Part 2 - Svesnka Svart Metal

Sometimes when you randomly search for "satan" on YouTube you get this:

Part I:



File under worst pick up lines of all time:
"Did you know the drummer from Marduk spat blood on me once ?"

och parte II:

METALSPLOITATION! - Part 1 - cheesy movies, cheesy soundtracks



Alright! It's time to celebrate the genius of goofy genres glomed together as "Metalspoiltation". Here's a few that are on the soundtrack side:

A z-grade Spanish-Swiss "revenge" actioner from the golden age of exploitation films 1966-82. Known in Spain as Los Violadores and banned in Australia for uh..."excessive Krokus content"? It's basically about a guy taking revenge against some nazi biker gang with the occasionally rape scene. Kickboxers vs. nazi biker gang - who wins? Who cares. Dude, it has fuckin' early 80's Krokus on the soundtrack!

Also in the cinema du discount is this non-sensical gem from Umberto Lenzi. Lenzi is most known for the ultra sick and mostly unwatchable cannibal flick "Make Them Die Slowly" aka: Cannibal Ferox. Lenzi also expanded into other genres like this mix of oh, teen sex comedy, random horror, prison drama, Jaws and yes, more biker gangs. It's a little pill called "Nightmare Beach" aka "Welcome to Spring Break"


But really who IS this collection hard rockin' cheese balls on this soundtrack?
Why it's all American cheeseballs like Bobby Rondinelli (who worked with Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Rainbow and Quiet Riot - all in their 'lean years') and Derek St. Holmes (from Really Terrible Ted Nugent's band). song by song breakdown, even.

Christ-spolitation or Rated "R" for "Rapture"?



Why does their "Satan" have a ripped up muscle shirt and looks like Paul Lynde?

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Ladies & Gentlemen put your hands together for Norway's funnyman, Fenriz!

I wasn't too sure about Darkthrone and 2nd wave Black Metal when I first delved into it (circa: 1995-98). At first I couldn't get my head around all those cascading, raw riffs. It sounded "too raw". Oddly enough it was the same thing I said about Bathory - whose music I grew to appreciate much more in the late 90's. The first Darkthrone I heard was on a Moonfog Records comp. "Crusade From The North". Once again the words "too raw" came to my mind.

Also, their putting "Norsk Arisk Black Metal (Norwegian Aryan Black Metal)" and some anti-Jewish statement on back of Trasilvanian Hunger
& working with the avowed racist Varg Vikernes didn't help much. Then in the inside of next album, "Panzerfaust" all that made things a little more clear: "Darkthrone is certainly not a Nazi band nor a political band, those of you who still might think so, you can lick Mother Mary's asshole in eternity." Eternity? Anyway, This shows at least their own the same blasphemous, anti-religious path that Black Metal is built upon. (That plus grim vocals & loads of great riffs!)

Flash forward a few years, and Fenriz & co are dropping Seinfeld & South Park references and making mention of artists as varied as M83, Gal Costa, Monika Kruse, Tangerine Dream to World Burns To Death (whose vocalist, Jack Control, Fenriz is friends with). Fenriz despite being in a world renounded Black Metal band still works at the post office sorting mail and most likely sending mix tapes & CD-Rs to his friends when the boss isn't looking. "He who dies with the most music wins" sez Herr Nagel.

Here is Fenriz in top form:



I can tell you background music in the first part is the 70's pomp rock band, Angel. Tho' I'd LOVE to know what t-shirt Fenriz is wearing.

Next up is a really cool feature from Norway's Channel 2 (only about 4-5 channels on regular TV and yet one's got Darkthrone, koolig!")


Finally, this clip is from the re-issue of Darkthrone's Black Metal debut, "A Blaze In The Northern Sky". It feature Fenriz and his partner in crime, Nocturno Culto. Shot in simple black & white in their jam space/cabin, it has the look of a Bergman movie. That is a Bergman movie filmed in the shadow of the horns.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

We Play eBay Black Metal Exclusively!

I wonder who the ultra-collector nerds that are going to pay for this shit

A ton of historical artifacts of the Norwegian and Swedish Black Metal scene being sold by Morgan Hakonsson of Marduk:

"amongst other things i will be listing.

LETTERS FROM DEAD
LETTERS FROM EURONYMOUS(INCLUDING ONE BLOODSTAINED....THAT CONTAINED PART OF deads SKULL AND TWO SHOTGUN PELLETS)(ofcourse the fragment is NOT for sale !) DEAD DRAWINGS.(INCLUDING THE ORIGINAL "DISSECTION DEMO" ONE used on THE GREIF PROPHECY) BURZUM,,DEBUT CD...WITH NO BARCODE!(ONLY 500 PRESSED) WITH THE PACKAGE HANDWRITTEN BY EURONYMOUS."


What? No skull fragments? That's not KVLT! I'd demand my money back.

Music and Politics – Morrissey Rides A Controversial Horse


Former singer of the Smiths and British music tabloid fodder, Morrissey is in a "row" again. The wry yet fey frontman has again been accused of racism based around a late 2007 interview he gave with NME.

In the interview Morrissey says: "Britain's a terribly negative place. And it hammers people down and it pulls you back and it prevents you. Also, with the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears." What complicates the matter is the way Morrissey presents his opinion it's not "England is dying because of immigration full stop." It's more to do with the critique of the general British character? While he doesn't explain what means by "a disappearing British identity", Morrissey makes it pretty clear when looking at the full context of his statement linked here from the Manchester Evening News

"The change in England is so rapid compared to the change in any other country. "If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent."

Morrissey admitted he enjoyed `the freedom to go around the world ... so you have to allow others the same freedom' adding `so I'm not sitting here saying it's a terrible thing, I'm saying it's a reality and to many people it's shocking'.

In a follow-up phone interview, Morrissey told the magazine: "I just think that it could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion.

"And that's not true at all. I am actually extremely worldly and there are other reasons why I would find England very difficult, such as the expense and the pressure."

He said: "My favourite actor is an Israeli, Lior Ashkenazi, and my favourite singer was born in Iraq and now lives in Egypt. So I'm not a part of Little Britain. And by that, I don't mean the show, obviously."

Asked about his parents moving to Britain, he said: "It's different now. Because the gates are flooded. And anybody can have access to England and join in. Millions of people leave the country every year because they don't recognise the place, so I'm not saying anything unusual. If you travelled to Croatia tomorrow for instance, and walked around Zagreb hearing nothing but Dublin accents, you'd find it shocking."


Furthermore, Morrissey, called racism "silly" and "beyond reason", in the same article."The Mozzer's" reputation has been damage to the point of taking legal action. He's also wrote a response in the Guardian which expresses his "adoration of James Baldwin, (my) love of Middle Eastern tunings" and much more.

There's also a variety of past ambiguous, yet controversial situations in Morrissey's history in the last two decades. Namely, the lyrics to "Bengali in Platforms". Although, based on the title, is more of a nice, poppy, glam rocker from Pakistan circa: 1973 than a racist screed. The other controversial title being "National Front Disco" which again, works with the construct of the unknown or absurd. In Europe disco is for a "place to dance" whereas in America it typically refers to Saturday Night Fever or flashy, sleazy guys in Angel Flight pants and coke spoon necklaces. It's hard to imagine Nick Griffin doing the hustle to Donna Summer.

Additionally, these Morrisey = racist accusations come from a 1993 Johnny Rogan penned biography, which claimed he once, in his late teens, wrote "I don't hate Pakistanis, but I dislike them immensely". However, NO substantial source is provided.

Additionally, in 1992 Morrissey's went on stage draped in a Union Jack for his performance at the first Madstock! Madness reunion concert at Finsbury Park, London, Plus, his backdrop for this show was a photograph of two female skinheads. The NME responded to this by investigating Morrissey's attitudes to race, claiming he had "left himself in a position where accusations that he's toying with far-right/fascist imagery, and even of racism itself, can no longer just be laughed off with a knowing quip". (New Musical Express, 22 August 1992)

Morrissey's wearing of the British flag to be no more "racist" than The Who & Def Leppard's popularization of Union Jack t-shirts or Stewart Home's use of skinhead imagery in his books. This lies more in the tradition of "taking the piss" out controversial aesthetics rather than endorsing the ideas of nationalism and racism. This type of tradition goes a least back to Monty Python if not further. It might be more useful for NME to investigate the British Blood and Honor organization's expansion into over 30 countries. Granted these are not big name pop stars. However, they are the real thing-they REALLY are racists who REALLY believe in violence & hate towards "those people". Apparently ambiguous pop stars sell more papers than nazi boneheads in Serbia or Sweden.