Archive for September, 2012
Metallica Names Former Ethiopian Emperor Halie Selassie As New Bass Player
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 27, 2012
Ending weeks of speculation, Metallica has chosen former Ethiopian Emperor Halie Selassie as their new bass player. The search began back in 2011 when bassist extraordinaire Robert Trujillo left the band after being named US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. The band had auditioned over 30,000 potential bass players before finally settling yesterday on Selassie. Selassie, who died in 1975, was known for shepherding his nation through a war with Italy and years of internal strife as well as being a member of Ethiopia’s top Metallica cover band “Purify”.
Selassie remains a controversial figure in the metal community since he ordered Metallica to stop using chemical weapons against Megadeth back in 2009. He has always been wildly popular among large sections of the Rastafarian metal community, but is universally despised by most Italian Fascist metalheads. Selassie is perhaps best known for his speech in 1936 in front of the League of Nations where he argued that Iron Maiden, not Manowar, should be considered the rightful Kings of Metal.
Selassie will begin his tenure in Metallica next month when the band gets to work on recording its next album “Exile in Ponyland”. The new record, due to come out sometime in late 2013, is a concept album that is based on both the popular My Little Pony toy series and Dante’s Inferno. The album’s story will focus on the travels of Starlight and Bright Eyes Pony as they journey through the darkest regions of hell. On their journey, they meet and befriend several lovable, unforgettable characters that are suffering eternal damnation.
Unlike some previous Metallica bassists, Selassie will be a major part of the songwriting process. He has an impeccable reputation throughout the music industry as a top-flight songwriter and has even scored Top 40 hits in the 1970s with the song “Devil Went Down To Georgia”, performed by The Charlie Daniels Band, and in the 1990s with the song “Crossroads”, recorded by Bone Thugs’n’Harmony.
Many different bass players applied for the job, including several well-known names. Veteran actor Burt Reynolds was initially considered a shoe-in for the job, but fell out of contention last month when he and guitarist Dom DeLuise joined Corrosion of Conformity. Former Pittsburgh Steeler coach Bill Cowher, 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill and Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman were all leading candidates for the position, but Selassie was able to win out due to his leadership and vision for the future of the band.
Century Media To Sue Man For Singing Iced Earth Songs In The Shower
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 24, 2012
In a move designed to discourage the unauthorized distribution of their albums as well as to bleed money from their audience, German based record label Century Media have brought suit against a Little Rock, Arkansas man for illegal singing Iced Earth songs in the shower. The man, identified as David Chaste, a mechanic and father of four young children, began singing the chorus from the Iced Earth song “Wolf” while taking a shower after work on August 5th, 2012. Chaste, who did not own the album the song was on, was overheard by his wife and, therefore, was distributing property that did not belong to him.
According to Cy Ganiff, the lawyer for the company, this sort of distribution of stolen property makes Chaste liable for nearly one million dollars in damages against the company. However, Century Media has offered to make the lawsuit go away if Chaste simply agrees to pay thousands of dollars in legal costs or name his next child Napalm Death.
According to Century Media spokesman James Heister, the record industry loses millions of dollars a year on people using their products without permission. “Think about how many people sing songs by Century Media bands on a regular basis. That is revenue the label is entitled to. After all, it is our property and they haven’t paid to use it,” said Heister, while kicking a puppy and burning a baby with a lit cigarette.
Last month, Century Media brought suit against Myrtle Washington, a 92-year-old woman who was overheard humming “The Star Spangled Banner” on line at a Kroger in New Port Richey, Florida. “The Star Spangled Banner” was, of course, first used on the Iced Earth album “The Glorious Burden”. The case was dismissed as by a local magistrate because it was considered frivolous, but that hasn’t stopped the label from looking for other creative new streams of revenue. Novel new methods of fundraising, like kidnapping and ransoming the children of those involved in illegal file sharing, are being strongly considered.
In spite of the unpopularity of the suit among many fans, some have rallied in support of the label’s right to use the American legal system as a giant extortion machine. Ralph Sycophant, a lifelong metalhead, self proclaimed rebel and founder of the internet protest group called Property Over People, believes that Century Media should continue with the lawsuit. “Companies have the right to do anything they want in order to make a profit. This is America. It’s in the Constitution,” said Sycophant.
Metalhead Immolates Self In Protest Of Rolling Stone List Of Top 100 Metal Bands
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 21, 2012
The war over Rolling Stone’s list of the Top 100 metal albums of all time just got more heated. On Thursday morning, metalhead activist Steve Dalkowski lit himself on fire in his living room in Asbury Park, New Jersey in an attempt to show his anger at the recent Top 100 list. The fire consumed two-thirds of his house and his entire collection of Pig Destroyer live DVDs. According to a note left by Dalkowski, he could “no longer live in a world where Borknagar’s 2012 release Urd is not given its proper respect by metal fans and the media as a whole.”
Dalkowski’s note, which railed against several notable omissions from the list, was scrawled on the back of a gatefold vinyl copy of “Anthems to The Welkin At Dusk”. It included a scathing critique of the list, which he noted “failed to include anything by Darkthrone, Mayhem or any of the early Gorgoroth records.” Further, he added that “the doom genre got totally and completely ignored. What sort of Top 100 list would leave out anything by St. Vitus?” He finished the note by excoriating the writers at Rolling Stone for “not even knowing which Death album James Murphy was on.”
Rolling Stone’s list has been criticized by many metalheads for including bands that are not traditionally considered heavy metal. Number 23 on the list, for example, was Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”. The Shins “Oh, Inverted World” and Kanye West’s “Late Registration” were also considered worthy of being in the Top 100 causing great consternation among those who follow metal. Still, Dalkowski’s reaction is considered extreme.
Dalkowski’s self-immolation is the latest in a string of metal related self-disfigurements. Two months ago, Nevada metalhead Jim Loudermilk doused himself in sulfuric acid to protest Cryptopsy’s failure to use fretless bass on their recent self-titled album. Last week, metal fan James Riley drowned himself in a giant vat of mustard in order to voice his displeasure that Bolt Thrower is not being allowed to play two sets at this year’s Maryland Death Fest.
Dalkowski is currently in critical condition at Mount Sinai hospital with burns over 90 percent of his body. Doctors expect a full recovery but believe he might never again be able to grow hair on his tongue.
Chicago Teachers Strike After Venom Is Banned From Classrooms
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 18, 2012
Chicago’s pro-Venom teacher strike has entered its second week with little hope of a quick resolution. The strike, started by teachers in response to Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s order to shelve the controversial “Cronos In The Classroom” program, has left parents struggling to find childcare and students ecstatic over not having to be crammed into overcrowded classrooms while being pushed from standardized test to standardized test like a mindless herd of cattle.
Chicago teachers began using Venom songs to help students improve in reading and mathematics. One unit of the program, “Algebra with Abaddon” teaches 8th graders by using problems like this: Chuck has 25 human heads collected for the Dark Lord Satan in his basement while Li has only collected 12. If Li collects 5 heads a month and Chuck only collects 3, when will Li have more heads than Chuck and get to wear the Mark of the Beast?
The program, started by former Flesh Eating Head Wound bassist and 9th grade Chicago public school English teacher Matt Strobe in 2006, was meant to teach basic skills in a way that is fun and engaging. “Much of what students see in the classroom feels disconnected and alien. Many of our students are heavily involved in Satan worship and animal sacrifice. The program was meant to speak to them in a language they understand and can relate to,” declared Strobe during a recent interview with the Chicago Sun Times.
The program was being used in fifteen schools when Emmanuel pulled the plug on it. In spite of being wildly popular with the students and being cited as a major reason that attendance has dramatically improved, Emmanuel felt the program had to go. “Obviously, there were issues over the content of the Venom songs being used. Satanic murder rampages are not something a school should endorse. Still, that wasn’t the main issue. We stopped the program because test scores in math and reading had declined,” said Emmanuel in a press conference last Monday.
The program has been replaced with one called “Consumer Magic”, a series of units meant to teach test taking skills and breed mindless obedience to authority figures and corporations. “Consumer Magic” has been tested in several cities and has led to higher test scores and a stronger willingness by students to engage in positive social activities like shopping and repeating what well-educated adults have already said.
For teachers, the end of a program like “Cronos in the Classroom” was enough to send them to the picket line. One possible compromise is the introduction of a program called “From Bathory to The Boardroom”, a mix of satanic, death-affirming values, corporate ideology and time tested learning strategies. The program is being considered by both the teachers union and the city and might offer a way out of the current impasse.
Metalheads Storm US Embassy in Cleveland; Demand End To Opeth Song
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 14, 2012
Chanting “Death to King Crimson Influenced Prog Metal”, thousands of enraged metalhead protesters stormed the US Embassy in Cleveland last night burning, looting and thrashing everything in sight. The protestors, enraged by a 4-year-long performance of Opeth’s “Black Rose Immortal”, tossed copies of Opeth albums along with several mellotrons onto a burning pyre just inside of the embassy gates.
Opeth began performing the song at Cleveland’s famed Agora Ballroom back on September 12th, 2008 and have been unwilling to conclude the song in the years since. The song was meant to be the finale to a highly successful show, but it kept going on. First for hours, then days, then weeks, then years. The crowd, which was filled to capacity at the start of the song, began dwindling. By December of that year, only 7 fans were left in the building, but the band played on.
Alfredo Garcia, the head promoter for the Agora, has tried everything possible to get them off of the stage. The sound was unplugged, the lights were turned out, a court order was issued to remove them, the local police attempted to tear gas them, he even hired a gang of hooligans and disgruntled Browns fans to rough the band up, all to no avail.
The people of Cleveland had finally had enough. Groups of wild-eyed protestors camped out in front of the Agora to try to force them to stop. When that didn’t work, they marched on the US Embassy and held over three months of boisterous demonstrations imploring President Obama to call out the National Guard in order to end the song.
Frustration and anger finally boiled over when a popular local Cleveland radio station made the mistake of playing Opeth’s “The Leper Affinity”. Several metalheads began scaling the walls of the compound and a full-scale invasion took place. Miraculously, only one person was injured, a 34-year-old man whose bullet necklace exploded while he was helping to set a car on fire.
In an exclusive interview with Tyranny of Tradition, Opeth frontman Mikeal Akerfeldt claimed that the band would eventually finish the song but “hadn’t yet gotten to the bass solo or the 2-year-long piano outro.” He was stunned by the chaos the song had caused. “We have to be living in a pretty ridiculous world to have music cause this level of violence and hatred. You’d have to be a highly deluded fool to attack an embassy based on one piece of artistic expression,” lamented Akerfeldt right before he launched into an unprecedented 1467th acoustic guitar break.
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson to Open Exclusive Black Metal Only Golf Course and Country Club
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 12, 2012
In a move designed to give committed black metal fans a break from having to spend time around people who consider Dimmu Borgir a true black metal band, billionaire casino owner and former Marduk bassist Sheldon Adelson plans to open the world’s first black metal only golf course and country club. The club will be meant to provide recreational and networking opportunities to those who are true to the cause of real black metal. The club will not allow any fake metal posers to join or even play as guests.
Adelson, a multi-million dollar contributor to political campaigns and groups that deal with social issues, has always felt that the cause of black metal elitism was close to his heart. He has given over 12 million dollars to Black Metal Listeners for Decency, a group that has lobbied the US Congress for several years in order to pass a law that force music retailers to only sell black metal albums to those who can provide valid proof of metal purity. Proof would include a signed letter from Fenriz, pictures of the person burning down a church or skull fragments from Euronymous.
The country club, set on 300 plush acres in the hills of North Carolina, will feature a course designed by legendary golf architect Robert Trent Jones. In spite of the traditional location and set up, the club will feature some unique and somewhat bizarre rules. Only those in corpse paint will be allowed to enter the clubhouse. In order to play the course, members must wear golf spikes as well as an authentic tour shirt from a black metal concert that took place before 1994. The only languages that will be spoken at the club will be Old Norse or Burzamtine, a language developed by Varg Vikernes during his time in prison.
Several poser rights groups have come out in opposition to creating a country club that practices discrimination. Arnold Vespesian, Director of Posers For Equality, and 100 of his followers have descended on North Carolina Sunday and began protesting the opening of the club. Vespasian is appalled that in this day and age a country club could be allowed to restrict its members based on their taste in music. “After all, aren’t people supposed to be judged on the content of their character, not the contents of their IPod? This is America!” announced Vespasian to a cheering group of kids in Cradle of Filth shirts outside of a Hot Topic in Charlotte’s Northlake Mall.
In spite of the protests, the course is still on track for a Spring 2013 opening. The course opening is expected to be attended by some of the top names in black metal and golf including Secthdamon, Tiger Woods and Destructhor.
Black Metal God Sheldon Adelson
Children Of Bodom To Promote New Album By Putting A Dog In A Dryer
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 10, 2012
If you are even a casual metal fan, you’ve seen your share of church burnings, corpse paint, virgin sacrifices, dead animals on stage and even the occasional Finn on Finn homicide. You’ve seen pirate metal. You’ve seen bands do entire concerts covered in potting soil. You’ve seen Vikings. You’ve seen limbless guitarists play Yngwie Malmsteen solos with their noses. You’ve seen bands play with orchestras. You’ve seen groups of naked lepers playing grindcore versions of Steely Dan songs. Most metal fans have seen it all. Until now.
On December 21st, 2012, Children of Bodom plan to take the metal gimmick to a place it has never gone before. In order to promote their forthcoming record “Collecting Pictures of Autopsies To Impress Girls”, Children of Bodom singer Alexi “Wildchild” Laiho plans to put a live dog in a dryer and hit start. The stunt, which will take place in Cleveland’s famed Agora Ballroom, will be performed in front of a crowd of 12,000,000 of Ohio’s most devoted metalheads.
The band plans to open the show with “Beaten To Death With An Armadillo”, the first single off of the new record. Then, during one of the 12 solos in the song, Alexi will throw Shemp, an 11-year-old French poodle, into a 14-cycle high efficiency front-loading Maytag dryer. During the concert’s finale, the dog will be removed from the dryer and forced to run through a make shift obstacle course created by the band on stage. Hijinks will ensue.
Children of Bodom are not the only metal artists boldly pushing in this creative new direction. Dimmu Borgir plan to interrupt their own concert in November by flushing oranges down all the toilets on the top floor of The Masquerade in Atlanta simultaneously. Cradle of Filth made news earlier in the month when singer Dani Filth began prank phone calling local supermarkets on stage and asking them if they had Prince Albert in a can. Behemoth even went so far as to put several sets of fake chattering teeth on the stage during a show last week in Dubuque, Iowa.
Not everyone is as excited about this event as Children of Bodom’s Hatecrew of wild-eyed, dog suffering hungry fans. Several groups have planned protests including People For The Ethical Torment Of Cows and Other Edible Beasts (PETAC). According to PETAC leader Emmett Fassbinder, The Children have threatened to not clean the lint screen before the dryer is started putting audience members at risk for “a fiery, horrific death.”
The Blankie Variations
Posted by Keith Spillett in Parenting Tips For Those With Children on September 6, 2012
(Night. Daddy, Moses and Blankie lie on a bed. All three stare into the darkness. All is quiet)
Daddy: Moses, you know that Blankie is actually your brother, right?
Moses: No. Blankie’s not my brother. Blankie is a blanket.
Daddy: Not yet. Blankie is only 5. He doesn’t become a blanket until he’s 18.
Moses: Daddy, Blankie isn’t 5.
Daddy: Sure he is. He’s very advanced for his age. Did you know that he’s an expert in archery?
Moses: What’s archery?
Daddy: Shooting a bow and arrow.
Moses: Daddy.
Daddy: Yes.
Moses: Blankie can’t shoot a bow and arrow. He doesn’t have arms.
Daddy: He uses his corners.
Moses: Oh.
Daddy: And he speaks three languages…
Moses: Really? Are you joking?
Daddy: No. He speaks English, Spanish and Cantonese. He is also semi-fluent in several regional dialects native to Ethiopia.
Moses: Oh.
Daddy: He only reads Russian and English though.
Moses: Oh.
Daddy: He’s read most of Tolstoy in the original language.
Moses: What’s Tolstoy?
Daddy: It’s a kind of medicine. For people who can’t sleep.
Moses: Blankie can’t read.
Daddy: Shhhh. You’ll hurt his feelings.
Moses: Daddy. Blankie can’t read because he doesn’t have eyes.
Daddy: Good point.
(Silence)
Daddy: Did Blankie ever tell you he was the starting fullback for Baylor on their 1995 Liberty Bowl winning team?
Moses: No.
Daddy: And did Blankie ever tell you he was the Attorney General under Richard Nixon. And that he quit rather than fire Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski?
Moses: No.
Daddy: And did Blankie ever tell you that he once saved a fishing village in Alaska from a giant squid?
Moses: No.
Daddy: And did he tell you that he was the bass player on the first and second Borknagar albums?
Moses: No.
Daddy: Oh.
Moses: Daddy?
Daddy: Yes.
Moses: He didn’t tell me because he doesn’t have a mouth.
Daddy: Oh. Well. Yeah.
Moses: Blankie isn’t real.
Daddy: You are going to give him a complex.
Moses: What’s a complex?
Daddy: A group of buildings.
Moses: Oh.
Daddy: It’s time for the two of you to go to sleep.
Moses: Blankie doesn’t sleep.
Daddy: Well, he’s going to be tired in the morning.
Moses: Yeah.
(They stare at the ceiling)
Daddy: Good night, son. Good night, Blankie.
Moses: Good night.
Blankie: Good night.
(They do not move)
Carcass Members Ask Obama To Stop Using “Regurgitation of Giblets” As Campaign Theme Song
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on September 4, 2012
On the eve of this years’ Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama is facing tough criticism from death metal legends Carcass. Obama, who regularly uses the splatter-grind classic “Regurgitation of Giblets” as intro music before his speeches, was asked to “cease and desist” from using the song until his policies match “the spirit in which the song was intended.”
According to Carcass singer Jeff Walker, “Regurgitation” was meant “to address the deeper themes of dehumanization in the work place, consumer alienation and the effects of modernity on the human form.” Guitarist Bill Steer reiterated Walker’s statement and added, “The song certainly wasn’t meant to help elect the President of the United States, a nation that is, after all, the largest dehumanizing, alienating force in the history of organized society.”
Obama, a die-hard Carcass fan, had been using the song to contrast the campaign’s message of stability and progress with the Republican themes of blind panic and race-baiting. He has even managed to use lines from it in a campaign speech in Dubuque, Iowa last month. “Romney’s America is one where the average American will be spewing up his or her collective sanguined guts into a wooden box. I ask you, do you want to be trapped in that type of sarcophagus? Is that the sarcophagus we want for our children?”
In deference to Carcass, the Obama campaign will no longer be using the song. They have decided to switch to either Clinton era favorite “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac or “Epitaph of the Credulous” by Suffocation. However, the campaign plans to keep distributing the 30,000 Carcass themed “Festerday In America” pro-Obama tee-shirts that they have been handing to supporters at campaign rallies.
This is not the first time that an American political campaign has run into trouble over the use of a song. Back in 1984, Bruce Springsteen strongly objected to Ronald Reagan’s use of “Born in the USA” as a campaign anthem. In 1840, the band Cattle Decapitation went to court to stop William Henry Harrison from using the song “I Eat Your Skin” in several television commercials.
Occasionally, however, metal bands lend their support to help a campaign. In 2000, metal godfathers Death re-recorded their first album under the new title of “Scream Albert Gore”, in order to support the Democratic Presidential candidate. While Gore did not become President, the album was credited with helping him win the hotly contested State of Florida in his campaign against George W Bush.
The Tyranny of Tradition 