Archive for December, 2014
Top 10 Metal Albums From 2104 List or Whatever
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing on December 31, 2014
I’ll Be Honest With You, This Article Is Pretty Lousy. However, I Thought I Might Distract You From That Painful Fact With A Danzig Meme.
2014 certainly was a year. It went by quickly and more of us were born than died. So, I guess things are looking up.
There were at least 10 incredible metal albums that came out this year. Unfortunately, I haven’t listened to any of them.
However, I am strong believer in the principles of jurnalizmcore (whatever they may be) and feel it is my solemn obligation to inflict upon you my opinion on what the best albums to come out in the past year were.
10. Licking Nutella Out Of a Goat’s Armpit
by A Plethora of Ants Eating The Lining of My Stomach
The second effort from this 93-piece grindcore orchestra from Wheeling, West Virginia turned heads by becoming the first CD in the history of heavy metal to explode when placed in any sort of listening device. So far, over 917 people have been maimed or killed by the record.
9.You And I Both Have Horrible Sores And Boils All Over Our Faces But We Are Still Human Beings And Deserve To Be Treated With Respect and Dignity
by Kankles On The Legs of Satan’s Younger Brother Ralph
This pop-power metal noise polka Eucharistcore mummy alphabet chicken Montreal haphazardly blackened deathrot band debuted with a record that many have compared to the noise made by a hippopatamus being slaughtered during a ritual sacrifice in Youngstown, Ohio by a roomful of Shriners.
1. Milk of Magnesia of Human Kindness
by Impetigo Sore Ridden Kidney and The Pips
I once witnessed a homicide in Troy, New York. It sounded like this album, only people were smart enough to run away.
Abbath Meme. Boom! I Bet You Already Forgot What The Article Was About
S?. Illegally Downloaded Version of Ride The Lightning
by Metallica
Sounds exactly like the legal version that people paid for except I had to type the names of the songs in (which was a serious inconvenience)
Twelve. Angel of Rotting Succubus Infected With The Worms of Evil
by Some Band That Sounds Like Slayer
I read somewhere that Joss Whedon had a painful adolescence. Too bad it didn’t continue.
Some number that rhymes with Twelve. I Went To Have Tests Done At A Local Hospital and They Diagnosed Me With A Horrible Disease That Only About Two Hundred People On Earth Have. I Ran Home And Named My Band After It.
by Rheumatoid Hemorrhagic Mump-Measals
A playful mixture Incantation, The Early Writings of The Marquis de Sade and Bob Marley. Sort of like listening to the last Burzum album after sustaining a traumatic head injury.
7. Fetal Gunshot Syndrome
by Fatal Head Wound
Best rap metal album to come out since the last rap metal album came out.
8. After Smoking For Thirty Years One Of My Lungs Looks Like A Plate of General Tso’s Chicken
by After Smoking For Thirty Years One Of My Lungs Looks Like A Plate of General Tso’s Chicken
I’m getting sick of trying to describe these albums. Most of them sound the same. I’m just going to type the first words that come to mind.
”Rattlesnake”….”Pomegranate”…”Optimum”….”Opiate”….
4. Jeff Hanneman Jokes Aren’t Funny
by Some Guy Who Just Told Me A Rick Allen Joke
I’m sure that just pissed someone off
W. Malaria: One of The Most Deadly Diseases On The Planet Yet Not One Metal Band Is Named After It
by Echo, The Bunnymen and Narcissus
Sounds like a cross between Nell Carter during her doom metal phase, early Pestilence, Erasure and mayonnaise.
2. Tim Lambesis
by My Dying Bride
Many believe this album might be a hit…
*rimshot*
“I’ll be here all week. Thanks. Try the veal”
Atlanta Falcons Fire Former Suffocation Drummer Mike Smith
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on December 29, 2014
Smith Moments After The Team’s 34-3 Loss To Carolina
The organization that many refer to as “The Cleveland Browns of The South” fired death metal drummer Mike Smith during a confusing morning press conference today at Flowery Branch. Team owner Arthur Blank cited Smith, whose speed and precision made him a legend during his days as skinsman for Long Island Slam-o-death kings Suffocation, as a major reason for the team’s horrendous performance over the past two seasons.
“Mike’s work, particularly on the double bass pedal, will be remembered by this organization, but things just weren’t clicking and we decided we needed to go in another direction,” said Blank to a room full of bewildered Atlanta media members.
Owner Arthur Blank Fielding A Question About The Album “Blood Oath” Earlier Today
Reports had surfaced earlier this week that Blank was growing increasingly frustrated with Smith’s decision making. The owner was particularly unhappy with what he referred to as “Smith’s poor time signature management”.
Much of Blank’s dissatisfaction stemmed from a Suffocation concert he had attended back in 1993 where Smith accidentally called a timeout during the last few measures of the song “Effigy of The Forgotten”. A source close to the team admitted that Blank blamed the drummer’s mistake for a close loss to Cleveland earlier in the season.
Falcons Receiver Julio Jones Not Fumbling During Yesterday’s Game
Smith, who was at his home in Coram, Long Island during the game, was surprised that a football team who had never hired him had chosen to blame him for their failures and terminate his non-existent contract.
“I got a call a few weeks ago from some raving lunatic who claimed to own the Falcons. He started telling me that if the Falcons didn’t make the playoffs I was going to lose my job. I told him I had never even been to a Falcon game. He said something like ‘maybe that’s why the team is underperforming’.”
“Last night, he called me back yelling about how much he hated the album ‘Breeding The Spawn’ and how the whole season was my fault. Then, he told me I was fired and hung up. It was all very strange.”
In spite of the fact that Smith has nothing to do with the team, he admitted that he had watched the 31-point shellacking at the hands of the Panthers and was disappointed that the team had “performed poorly in all four phases of the game…offense, defense, special teams and cookie monster vocals.”
General Manager Thomas Dimitroff has already begun a search for Smith’s successor. This morning, the organization contacted Deicide about the availability of drummer Steve Asheim. One report claimed the Falcons are seriously considering pursuing free agent drummer Gene Hoglan to fill the make-believe vacancy. The team, however, has denied they have any interest in hiring former 49ers coach and Morbid Angel drummer Jim Harbaugh because he is “too extreme”.
Proposed Lyrics To Metallica’s “Unforgiven Four”
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Poetry of Death on December 29, 2014
“Yes, we sell out. Every seat in the house. Every time we play. Anywhere we play.”
-Jason Newsted on VH-1’s Behind The Music: Metallica
Unforgiven Four
(Song begins sounding almost exactly like Unforgiven 3 in the hopes of capitalizing on earlier Metallica work and ensuring that the landscaping on Mr. Hetfield’s home in Malibu will be paid for well into the next century)
How could we know
Writing four-minute ballads-ah,
Would change our lives for-ever-ah?
Hired Bob Rock to change our course,
Sold trillions of records-ah,
Caused old metalheads
Senseless pain,
In our quest for Bentleys.
Been confused,
Always confused,
By the rage they’re feeling.
We…ARE…A…COM-MOD-ITY,
That’s…..what…you…want us….to be,
(What you want us to be)
(Chorus)
How come if we suuuuu-ck,
We make more money this way?
Stopped playing no-name clubs,
You should see our 401-Ks!
How can we go wrong?
This is the American Way,
How can we sell out?
This is how the game play—-dah.
People like to whine,
About how things have changed,
Distracts them from their lives,
To us it just seems strange.
We do what people waaaaa-nnn-tttt,
We have become unsure,
If we’ve always been a business,
What should we be Un-forgiven Forrrrrrrrr?
(Mediocre instrumental part that ham-handedly transitions from cannibalizing The Unforgiven 3 to regurgitating the first part of Unforgiven 2)
Lay beside me,
Try not to make me grin,
Commodity fetishism-mmmah,
Is surely not a sin.
We are rock icons,
We certainly do not care,
About your lives, about your ideas,
Just please don’t file share.
Lay Beside Me,
And I’ll tell you how things are done,
You act the part,
Hock an image,
None of this is true.
We are a consumer item
Just like Elmer’s Glue,
Well…they’ve been selling rock as revolution,
Since 1962,
If you can understand McDonald’s,
Then you understand what we do.
Yeah, you can understand what we do-ah!
(Chorus)
What we’ve done,
What we’ve sold,
You know the rules,
No one’s been rolled,
You hate the system,
But you participate too—ah.
Yeah…What we’ve felt,
What we’ve known,
Hegemonic mediocrity,
Etched in stone.
Behind our masks,
We are amused by youuuu-ah.
Before you call,
Lars a whore,
Then peddle your skills,
To buy seats on the floor,
Remind us again why you’re so pure,
And we’re The Un-forgiven Four.
(Mildly interesting but forgettable solo section that somehow meanders into a new chorus meant to put an end to this monstrosity of a song)
You think we’re old,
But we’ll survive,
In ten years you’ll get nostaligiccc-ah
Want to see us live,
Pay 400 dollars,
To hear us play The Unforgiven Five-ah.
Yeah…The Unforgiven…………..Five……
King For A Day: My Adventures Roaming Around The City of Atlanta Dressed As King Diamond
Posted by Keith Spillett in Existential Rambings on December 17, 2014
I’ll admit it; I’m probably not the most normal person on the planet. Some would say there is no such thing as “not normal”. They have never encountered a 39-year-old man pretending to be King Diamond at a Quik Trip gas station trying to buy a chocolate chip muffin and a Pepsi.
For a very long time, I have wondered what it would be like to walk around a major American city in King Diamond paint for an entire day. I’m not sure what started the wheels turning on this one for me. I never particularly liked mimes or really anyone who wears large amounts of face paint.
I’m a moderate fan of The King. I’ve gone through phases where I listened to a lot of his music, but I’m certainly not like the guy who was standing next to me at the 1993 Halloween concert holding a wooden cross upside down and chanting in tongues for 20 minutes before The Man got up on stage.
The transformation process was a bit strange. It took about 45 minutes to get the makeup right. I sat there listening to “Don’t Break The Oath” staring off into space as I was painted. I once wore rouge for a 5th grade presentation of Annie in which I had a brief role as one of FDR’s advisors (Harold Ickes), but beyond that, I had never gone through the process of having makeup applied to my face.
It’s uncomfortable. I immediately felt empathy for clowns, particularly this one woman “Miss Teacup” who I once met while she waited for the tow truck to come pick up her broken down Toyota Tercel. She was standing there in 95 degree heat wearing about a half of a pound of makeup frantically trying to contact the family of the child whose birthday party she was supposed to be at. If I knew then what I know today, I would never have stolen her purse.
There were really only a few noteworthy encounters. One person started singing “Rock and Roll All Night” when they saw me. I was unamused. Being mistaken for Gene Simmons under any circumstances is offensive to me, but the metal purist in me wanted to throttle the person. Another person asked me if I had any Faygo. You can imagine the horror I felt. My co-workers were relatively amused, but it was laughed at and quickly forgotten as the business of life ground on.
There are these Pro-Life protestors that I regularly see on the drive home with signs that read things like “It’s A Baby, Not A Choice” and “I Survived The American Holocaust” camped in front of the local Planned Parenthood. I had an elaborate scheme planned in which I leaped out of my car and began screeching the lyrics to “Abigail”. Unfortunately, they were not there and my rather uneventful day as The King slogged on.
I kept casting glances out of my car window at people who I intended to frighten. No one seemed particularly impressed or even remotely affected. A minivan cut me off in traffic. I drove up right next to the car and gave the driver an angry look. He cast a brief eye in my direction then went back to text messaging someone about whatever urgent thought had just occurred to him.
I assumed that my stop to get gasoline would be the highlight of the day. Someone would have to find this at least a bit out of the ordinary. Again, disappointment. I stood behind my car pumping gas. People walked by. Some looked, some didn’t. No response.
I went inside to the cash register. The person whose named tag announced him to be “Tim” looked took my 20-dollar bill and gave me change. Nothing. Was this an ordinary occurrence at gas stations throughout the American South? Was this odd attempt to garner attention not particularly interesting or funny? Was I misreading the body language of the people around me? Were people simply so locked into the everyday drudgery of their lives that a 6 foot 2 man in heavy metal makeup could not even awaken them from their daily slumber? I wasn’t sure.
I slumped back into my car and drove home. My wife and children found the whole thing pretty funny, but considering I regularly run around the house with a pair of pants on my head or singing Soviet Era march anthems, it didn’t really strike anyone as being out of the ordinary. We took some pictures and went back to our usual routines.
Life seems to march on unmoved by the bizarre actions of myself or anyone else. When something truly out of the ordinary occurs they might ponder it. For a moment. Sometimes.
Life has an energy of it’s own. It flows in 7 billion directions all at once. Everyone in their own lanes. Everyone going somewhere. Doing something. Thinking. Breathing. Talking. Texting. Chewing. It all just goes on and on. Day after day. Night after night. There is no universal theory to explain it. It’s just one event after another. An endless parade of sights and sounds.
What is the importance of one man wearing King Diamond makeup in this sea of human impulse and action? Very little. Throughout the entire day, I felt this odd pressure to be noticed. As if it was critical that someone see me, see what I had done. To laugh. To be altered from their course.
At first, I was kind of bothered that no one really seemed to notice. After all, what was the point beyond seeing the shocked expression on a few faces? As time went on, I just wanted to get the makeup off. I was tired of showing off. Tired of playing a part. Exhausted by trying to be noticed.
At the end of the day, I felt a genuine sense of relief to take the makeup off. I’ve always felt it important to stand out as an individual. I’m narcissistic enough to have spent four years writing random thoughts and ideas on this website and hoping desperately that people will want to tune into my world enough to read it. I enjoy the thrill of being noticed. Until yesterday, I had never realized how tiring searching for it can be.
The best part of the day for me was when I sat alone in the deadening quiet of my bedroom right before I fell asleep. No one was watching me. No one cared what I was doing or how I was doing it. Silence. For a fleeting moment, I felt the genuine peace of not being an individual, but simply being.
I sunk into life and disappeared. It was beautiful.
Why The Girls Are Right About #Metalgate
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on December 15, 2014
(Guest columnist and noted political philosopher John Winthrop gives his thoughts on the latest #Metalgate controversy)
Women! They are everywhere nowadays! There are lady lawyers, lady doctors and, even, lady construction workers. Some people say there might even be a Lady President pretty soon. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone of us that ladies can do almost anything that a man can do. They even can play heavy metal music better than some of the boys!
Let’s face it fellas, it’s time to open the #metalgate to anyone who wants to come in. It’s time the bare-knuckle savages climb back up in their trees and enter the 20th century. Metal is for everyone…folks! Not just the guys!
It’s a new day PEOPLE! Metalheads can be black, white, purple, green, gay, straight, male, female, Latvians, Ukrainians, those who suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome, those who struggle with basic math facts, those who have bunions, those who do not have bunions, those who wish they had bunions and don’t, those who married their spouses because they were secretly attracted to their bunions. Anyone!
The other day, I was out at one of these Lady Metal concerts. Ladycore or whatever the “special interest groups” like to call it. There was this lady onstage and she was wailing away at the guitar. A lady drummer was pounding away on the drums. Some lady singer was yelling about lady issues. She was mad, too! I’ve never seen one of them so angry. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but I bet her husband really did something to irk her! I’m surprised he let her out on stage like that.
This Lady Metal band played for an hour without a break. At first, the fellas in the crowd were just like “she’s hot” and whatever, but after a while they were all listening to the music. And, you know what, it wasn’t all that different than the stuff real musicians played. These ladies knew how to rock!
Someone told me that some lady writer wrote an article the other day that said that heavy metal was conservative and is becoming liberal. Or was bad and is becoming good or something like that. That’s stupid! I’m all for this empowerment stuff, I mean, giv’em what they want if it means so much to them, but I don’t want metal in my politics or politics in my metal. I didn’t come for the gender equality…I came to bang my head!
When I listen to metal it is to escape from the world, not be reminded I live here. Heavy metal is neutral. It isn’t male or female. It’s music. Last time I checked, music doesn’t have the necessary plumbing to be considered anything but a bunch of notes being played through a speaker.
I don’t mind if they get up on stage with the boys, I just don’t want to get into all of their agenda and issues and stuff. Everybody has got problems! Besides, they are up on stage, isn’t that enough for them or do they have to own the whole damn building?
I also heard this lady writer said that metal is getting “on the right side of history”. All I can say to that is, “Welcome to the party, Babe!” Metal has always been on the right side of history! We crush all other styles of music! We came, We Saw, We Rocked! End of story!
History keeps showing us over and over again that men OR women with the balls to conquer keep conquering and those afraid to rock get stomped. Even that whiner Marx said it in The Count of Manifesto when he was like “those who have the equipment get to take whatever they want”.
Listens To Hip Hop
Metal is about owning and conquering. Always has been, always will be. A predator comes along in the wild and is hungry; he eats his weaker prey. He doesn’t ask about the feelings of the animal he’s eating. He doesn’t listen to a whole bunch of speeches from other animals about how he’s bullying the creature. He doesn’t set up a support group for the other animals who might end up getting eaten. He just eats till he’s full and leaves the bones. It’s human nature.
Some people are going to read this and think I don’t like women or want them to be treated worse than men. That’s not true. I love women. I was raised to treat them with respect. I have three daughters who I love with all my heart. Do you think I want people telling them there are things in this world they are not allowed to do because they were born girls?
All I want is to not be told what to do by outsiders because they got their feelings hurt a few times growing up. People want me to speak in a way that is politically correct, but what about how I feel? What about who I am? Why do I have to be the one that pretends?
Do you think I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think “here’s the bad guy”? Is that what you think when you see me?
Listen, I would pay my hard earned money to see girls play metal as long as they play real heavy metal. I’m for freedom. That’s what America is all about. As far as I’m concerned, if these ladies play real heavy metal they can play in any damn club I’m in any day of the week.
The Tyranny of Tradition 