Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Pro Wrestling vs. Death Metal

Pro Wrestling


(Pretty Damn Generic 90's) Death Metal


Me thinks that Razor Ray has a pretty big Road Warriors influence. I only wish job interviews were this much fun.

Monday, December 14, 2009

What the fuck is a City Rock?


Huey (without the News?), Bill Graham, Willie Brown & Diane Feinstein - can't get more official "City Rock" than this.
(Oh yeah, and Bob Weir).

Talk about over thinking it:

From page 56 of 63 fucking pages:

Hugh Jass
Posts: 1420
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Re: CITY ROCK
« Reply #830 on: April 12, 2009, 01:49:54 AM »
There has been dissent about what constitutes a City Rock movie, but let there be no quibbling about City Rock roller coasters. I am currently watching a PBS documentary about the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. City Rocker emeritus Eddie Money plays a prominent part in the doc and he asserts that the Giant Dipper is his favorite roller coaster anywhere. "To this day, it scares the living hell out of me."

Now we should discuss City Rock mini-golf courses. Golfland in Castro Valley is VERY City Rock, but what's the word on Scandia in Fairfield?

Oh shit! The doc now has Greg Kihn talking about playing the Boardwalk. This documentary must be the official City Rock carnival documentary."

Monday, November 30, 2009

NSBM bands just wanna rock with their (fascist) cocks out



Exhibit One: Satanic Warmaster – covering Motley Crue’s “Take Me To The Top”

Exhibit Two: Nokturnal Mortum – covering W.A.S.P.’s “Wild Child”

So, will this mean that Graveland will cover Keel’s “The Right To Rock”? Or will Absurd cover Dokken’s “Paris Is Burning” complete with flamin’ guitar solo? If so, this would be a minor improvement on a bunch of lame-ass controversial bands whose music never seems to rise above “novelty value”. Yeah, yeah, I know Nokturnal Mortum loves to get down with the fiddles with their quasi-black metal shit but it’s still not selling me. Their bullshit beliefs aside, these bands rarely know how to put the METAL in Black Metal. Or the ROCK in their Rock Against Vulgar Marxism (or whatever the fuck their other styles are is). I mean as good sounding as the sketchy bastards like Der Strumer or Sigrblot are there's also the "can't play an audible chord or know how to make a decent song to save their life of War88 along with the or the pure comedy of the Nokturnal Mortem related power metal cheese makers, Finist

Even Satanic Warmaster confused about what night looks like:

Sure they live in Finland and in the summer there’s nearly 24 hours of sun but where’s the thematic consistency? They also play with openly neo-Nazi bands like Absurd then deny they’re NSBM. Also, last year, someone I know from the Finnish Metal scene told me at this same Absurd/Satanic Warmaster show there was a ton of people sieg-heiling. Way to go, geniuses.

When Metal Hammer failed to live up to its name.

UK Metal Hammer's albums of the year in 1997. In the weird "Oh, Heavy Metal? That's not cool anymore, I listen to ____" era. They might've been the same idiots bursting out the bootleg Iron Maiden shirts but can't name any of their songs or albums.

1. Feeder - Polythene
2. Entombed - To Ride, Shoot Straight And Speak The Truth
3. 3 Colours Red - Pure
4. Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape
5. Deftones - Around The Fur
6. Radiohead - OK Computer
7. Paradise Lost - One Second
8. Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land
9. The Verve - Urban Hymns
10. Faith No More - Album Of The Year
11. Sick Of It All - Built To Last
12. Misery Loves Co. - Not Like Them
13. Strapping Young Lad - City
14. Metallica - Re-Load
15. Kerbdog - On The Turn
16. Green Day - Nimrod
17. Reef - Glow
18. Me First And The Gimme Gimmes - Have A Ball
19. Oasis - Be Here Now
20. Life Of Agony - Soul Searching Sun

How many actual metal albums are there? Maybe 2 or 3? (if we taken in that not-so-good era Paradise Lost album). Even that Entombed albums a bit suspect. Granted this wasn't only Metal Hammer going in this direction but also Kerrang with the horrible normal font and the coverage of shit bands like Clawfinger, Stuck Mojo and Limp Bizquick.

Xmas Xcess

Immortal

The King (as in Diamond)

Drametal (from Japan)

Metal Archives search

Bad News - featuring members of the Young Ones & precursor to...

....Spinal Tap


Motorhead


Nothing like David Lee Roth in elf pants

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Fuck You, Non-Cloud Havin' Sky...



...the new Immortal's out and it REALLY needs to get cold! It just doesn't feel TRUE without it.

Some choice lines from "Arctic Swarm":

"Through the storm of storm the Aurora lights
In her swirling skies a wrathlike ice
Born to ride the cold, winds of the North
Cometh to freeze the grounds "

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Of Walls and Whitecross


Take a gander here, this is some goofy, very Reagan-Bush-era stuff. Filmed not long after the Scorpions er, Eastern European citizenry (and NOT WrongOld Raygun) took down the Iron Curtain, Christian Nerf-Metallers or "Ratt-with a bible" - Whitecross did their own take. I'm not too sure what this "new" wall is but the lyrics allude to "Jesus said the Kingdom's just a prayer away". Okkeeey, but your carpenter buddy also said:

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."
(Luke 19:2).

So explain THAT one fluffy-hair prostelyzin' dude. In the terrible taste test, I'm thinking this is just a tiny notch above "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue".

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Hit 'Em All

Gorman Thomas, Brewers, 1980

and his Danish not-quite brother, 1983

Sunday, September 27, 2009

"...and we hate Slayah wot more can we fookin' say?!"

Mike Reid's BBC1 Radio Show discussed the #15 on the station, which wasn't the usual MTV fare. On a dare they play
Fellow DJ, Tommy Vance bet them £100 to play Venom's "Warhead", a song which took even my metalic ear awhile to get used to.



Extreme Venom fans from Brummie land, Mark & Steve continually call the BBC answering machine but also run out of pence on the phone box. Still, they hand on to claim: "No fooker's gonna stop us-nobody...and you piss on all those wanka bands (like) Mercful Fate and even kick in...Accept and W.A.S.P." Eventually adding these choice quotes:

"I'm a Venom geek but I feel I must keep on about it."

"They're fookin' American liggers" Liggers is Brit slang for 'hanger on'. More on that via Urban Dictionary:

BBC in the Northeast area did an interview and dissed in order Metallica, Boy George and themselves.

While this was very silly, I'm sure there were a certain group of Norwegian teenagers that latched on to the "Pure Fuckin' Mayhem" concept.

Then there was this gem from a 1984 Dutch Radio where all 3 members of Venom were pissed to tha gills:

Part 1


Part 2


Mantas' fave band was Y&T. I wonder what he thought of that tumor called "Summertime Girls"?

Thursday, September 24, 2009

In the future - everything will be "indie rock"

Pitchfork Media, yeah I read 'em sometimes- it's the "monkey with typewriters" thing every so often the get it right. Here's an example:

It's not just music, either. I don't know quite when it happened, but at some point a certain vague strain of "indie" dropped its last vestiges of seeming weird and became a commonplace-- sort of like in Britain, where "indie" has long been synonymous with the normal guitar bands people find fashionable. When those I'm-a-Mac, I'm-a-PC commercials came out, I even saw some ad critic describe Justin Long's Mac guy as an "indie type." Why? He's just a young middle-class-looking white guy with a haircut. (I'd be more aghast, except it's actually not hard to imagine him telling you about the New Pornographers.) And soon enough any film, book, or cultural product that came anywhere near a certain sensibility-- anything anyone would describe as "quirky" or cleverish or tender-- fell in the indie bucket, too: Garden State with its hilarious Shins scene, Wes Anderson movies, Dave Eggers (??), Juno, Zooey Deschanel's general existence, private colleges, button shirts, the Internet, IKEA, Miracle Whip, literacy, you tell me. The sensibility used to seem rarer, and then, I suppose, half the people attracted to it grew up and got creative jobs and now it floats everywhere. So huge swathes of twentysomethings, like anyone with a college education or a Mac or a strummy guitar record: indie, apparently? Which is allegedly quite the thing these days.

from Nitsuh Abebe's "The Decade in Indie"

Did ya hear, bro' the Internet is TOTALLY INDIE! So's Zooey Deschanel who can be currently be seen shilling for the cotton industry in some horrible "song-emercial". Everytime I think the metal & punk scene(s) are overwrought with b.s., I can just go on Pitchfork and be realize that it's not so bad. Now where's that Embrace of Thorns CD?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Listen to my radio shows!

Bloodstains Across Atherton-Half Ass edition
8th August 2009 HERE

Note: the opening track starts mid-way through and unfortunately the Lifelover track cuts off. Also, I had a trainee DJ named Nate on with me. He now has his own show late on Tuesdays

Playlist:

Samothrace - Cacophony - Life's Trade
Kylesa - Said And Done -Static Tensions
Isis - Threshold Of Transformation - Wavering Radiant
Sunn O))) - Big Church [Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért]
- Monoliths And Dimensions
Harvey Milk - Old Glory - COLL: Oaken Throne Zine CD comp #5
Rome - Flight In Formation - Flowers From Exile
Swans - Will We Survive? - Various Failures 1988-1992
Beyond Dawn - Certain Qualities- Electric Sulking Machine
Lifelover - Mental Central Dialog - Konkurs

Bloodstains Across Atherton
 4th July 2009 HERE

This isn't the entire show but it's the last hour, where I crammed in a lotta tunes- a number of which are on old-ass vinyl.
So "digital perfection" this is NOT, just turn it UP!

Playlist:

Nomad, Naz & the Nightmares - Action Woman - Give Daddy the Knife Cindy
The Mummies - Test Drive - Play Their Own Records
The Rippers - Mr. Jones - Why Should I Care About You?
Pentagram - Be Forwarned - First Daze Here: The Vintage Collection
ZZ Top - Precious And Grace - Tres Hombres
Brutal Truth - Fist In Mouth - Evolution Through Revolution
Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Moral Distortion - Agorapocalypse
Born Dead Icons Burden/Unlearn - Unlearn 7"
D.R.I. God Is Broke - Dealing with It
Cryptic Slaughter - Lowlife - COLL: Speed Metal
Obliveon - The Scrutinizer - COLL: To Live Is To Ever Be In Danger/Whimsical Uproar demo
Janitor Joe - KCL - Bullethead/KCL 7"
Tervet Kadet - Outo Maa - COLL: Welcome to 1984
Ohlo Seco - Nada - COLL: Welcome to 1984
Smelly Tongues - Parasite - Hard To Believe: A Kiss Covers Compilation
Skin Yard - Snowblind - Hard To Believe: A Kiss Covers Compilation

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Corpse Paint - An Illustrated History


      Well an almost history. C'mon look at Kevin Sullivan circa: 1983!




Granted his corpse-painted-ness was more under the radar than the Road Warriors or Demolition (the WWF's Road Warriors rip off). Also, you can buy the above Francesca Bunny Williams' print from Wonderleague in the UK. Wonderleague also has a good collection of "yes, they REALLY made these" trading cards.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Murderous Math Game


Late 70's-era Chuck Manson +

now-era Varg

= William Morva, current death row inmate in Virginia.

A few reasons to go to Trenton, NJ



This Overkill/Venom/Black Flag show is the one that Henry Rollins wrote and spoke about in "Get In The Van". A bit more of that is here. It's likely he wasn't around for Overkill (the Jersey one, not Flag's SST labelmates) but I wonder what he would thought about Bobby Blitz & co.

Friday, August 28, 2009

All knobs to the right!



All knobs to the right not left! We're makin' metal here not a friggin' Mariah Carey record.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Leemind Dorianmarathon

Napalm Death's Lee Dorian 1989


Landmine Marathon's Grace Perry & Ryan Butler 2009

While seeing Landmine Marathon for the first time on Tuesday night, I was reminded of this iconic photo of Lee Dorian circa: From Enslavement To Obliteration (or as it's known in metal forums, "FETO, dood!") The unpredictable and amazing stage prescence of Grace Perry as well as her choice in fine flannel shirts, reminded me of this forever ingrained image of the then N.D./now Cathedral frontman. Granted, I never saw Napalm Death in 1989 as they didn't come to the Bay Area until a year or two (?) after the release of "From Enslavement..." on the "Grindcrusher" tour with Godflesh and (I think) Carcass. That said, I lucked out and saw them on the following tour with Dorrian-fronted doomsters Cathedral & Carcass. I might post a "retro-show" review of that sometime.

Getting back to the present, Landmine Marathon reallytore it up. Seemingly endless strains of extremely fast yet continually interesting songs. All of which seemed to mix grindcore, death metal and the fastest thrash metal with extremely heavy yet not cliched breakdowns. While they have received a decent amount of press via Invisible Oranges, Decibel and even the otherwise "Hot Topic-ists" at Revolver have a guest blog by aforementioned Grace Perry here. L.M. was not only a fantastic band onstage but also also very friendly folks off stage. Always good to see bands that are "complete" i.e. great music, interesting lyrics, good artwork, great live show & sincerely nice people. So now get your ears onto this: 'cause it fuggin' RULES!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Silly Leather Clothes to Wear and Happy Cigarettes

High weirdness by radio, made by parody songsmith Ogden Edsl. Edsl was most known for his Dr. Demento chart topper, "Dead Puppies". Unlike the more common but sarcastic take on death of "Dead Puppies", this was possibly one of the first "pedo creep" clown songs. Sure, evil clowns from the reality of John Wayne Gacy and to fictional of Pennywise were around but this was before the taboo breaking and now very common Michael Jackson-related jokes. And really was't Michael Jackson a multi-billion dollar (media) circus clown?

So, let's go back to 1979 (!) with some dementia Also, there's this warped lo-fi video version

Interestingly, this came about before Kinko's the copy store was around.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Japanese for awesome

Unfortunately this Japanese translation of pro wrestling legends The Road Warriors isn't imbeddable but check it out, here

Ex-hard rock bumblebee marries ex-hooker - both born again Xtians

What in thee absolute hell/heaven/hades

STRYPER guitarist Oz Fox's wedding to Annie Lobért, a 41-year-old former call girl who founded the international Christian ministry Hookers for Jesus, will be webcast live via www.thechurchlv.com/live on Friday, June 5 at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Special song(s) will be sung by Michael Sweet and Oz Fox of STRYPER, Rachel Sneed (The Church At South Las Vegas worship leader) and the bride-to-be.


The Blabbermouth link also features a clip of Ms. Lobert on the 700 Club. I'm still waiting for a G.G. Allin type to became an born again and do a webcast/reality show of it.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

It's as simple as Hell, Satan and Death

While this made the rounds a bit in the metalsphere, it's still quite a source of amusement.

Slayer



Metallica

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The Finnish Manowar?



Teräsbetoni - with the song Orjatar. The band name is Finnish for "reinforced concrete" it's plenty metal and plenty cheesy. Castle, unplugged instruments, writhing oversexed women? Tick all 3 boxes. These dudes also have the tune "Taivas lyö tulta" which (according to Metal-Archives) was selected to be the Finnish national ice hockey team's goal song.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

They're just an Earth cover band



Who sound better a 45 RPM (or at least with Attila Cshiar)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Nothing Like Makin' Up Your Own Genres


Yeah, dood this is my favorite "Glam Death Metal" band of all time! Are they also dissing Slayer by saying "Hell Can Wait"?

Trapped Under Coinciden-ICE!


Abbath from Immortal from "Grim and Frostbitten Kingdoms" video

vs.

"I Want a New Drug Era" Huey Lewis? Weird, innit?

Things I Learned In 70's Comic Books

1) I used to think these were cigars and not "filtered meat snacks". I never had them when they were in these wasteful packages. Not that the "Macho Man" Savage-era Slim Jims were eco-conscious but still...

2) You could get a skinny-ass skateboard for under $40. My sister had one like this but it was the "Sidewalk Surfer" brand with crappy clay wheels. I later got me a banana board which was similar but (banana) yellow, then moved up to a few slightly wider Gemco models with grip tape. I eventually got sick of munchin' it whilist running over rocks and went full on into the multiple terrain friendly world of BMX.

Ghost Rider #018, 1976 "Whoa! This looks neat-o AND it has Spiderman. Mom, can I have a quarter-rrrr-r?" Naturally, I gravitated toward Ghost Rider's flame/death/revenge aesthetic and this was when I was still stuck listening to Wings and the Eagles on AM radio.


4) I didn't know jackshit about religion at age 6 but this blew my mind I knew something scary and dark was going on here. I had never seen a scene of Jesus on a crucifix before but I did see THIS. Were the comic book versions of the Bible this awesome looking? Well, maybe Chick tracts were but that's before I knew what cynicism and irony were.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Someone better make this an album cover-and fast!


I'm seeing gatefold sleeve. I nabbed this from olga salgo's fantastic flickr page - chock full of images of old, wonderous and obscure films as well as strange dolls. Her Giallo Junction and The Black Motion Picture Experience series are choice.

I have no idea which Blaxspoitation movie the above photo is from but damn, do I wanna see this!