Posts Tagged Dave Lombardo
I Voted For Heavy Metal and All I Got Is This Lousy Country
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Politics Of Catastrophe on May 21, 2014
Americans vote for a variety of reasons. In some cases, they are concerned citizens who believe they can use the ballot box to change the direction our nation. In other cases, they do so because they feel an obligation to participate in the rituals of the democratic process. Not me. I vote every chance I get in order to amuse myself to no end by voting for my favorite metal artists.
It usually takes me a half an hour to vote. I go through the races I’ve followed closely and am able to intelligently evaluate, like Senatorial or Congressional elections, and try to pick the best person for the job. I know I’m being hustled here and am sure that nearly any candidate I pick is a shill for some multinational corporation, but I saw “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” one too many times and allow myself the illusion of “making a difference”. Once that nonsense is out of the way, I get to the fun stuff.
Often in elections, you are given the choice of candidates you have almost no hope of being able to evaluate. For example, how on earth can I possibly determine who would be the best Head of the State Department of Agriculture? I don’t know a thing about farming and wouldn’t have the foggiest notion of how to pick the most appropriate person for the job. I don’t even really know what they do. That’s when I start voting metal.
Georgia offers the write-in option in all races. Therefore, if you want to vote, like I did, for Venom’s gravel throated frontman Cronos to make the state’s agricultural policies, you can do just that! I felt bad about leaving the rest of the original Venom crew out so Abbadon and Mantas received my nod for seats on my local school board. For County Sheriff, I voted for Sodom’s Tom Angelripper. After all, shouldn’t the saw be the law?
I stand there typing in metal artists laughing maniacally. I have voted for Ronnie James Dio in every election going back to 1998 for positions ranging from Superintendent of Schools to Federal Judge. Confused people peer over at me and avert their eyes when I look back at them. They probably think I’m a madman. I’m merely a Surrealist-American doing his part to bring this nation one step closer to the golden age of weirdness that has come to be known as The Freak Future.
Usually, you have about 20 different judges to vote for. They often run unopposed, so unless they happened to give you a night in jail for going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit or get caught in a brothel covered from head-to-toe in ox blood, you are going to vote for them. I see this as a great opportunity to pack the courts with metal luminaries ranging from Quorthon to Lemmy. I voted “Slayer” for a seat on the Bench. The whole band. I struggled mightily with the question of whether this would mean the original Slayer lineup or some of the later incarnations. Who would be the Court drummer Bostaph, Lombardo or Jon Dette?
Sometimes I get bored and switch to other weird possible candidates. One year when the ballot was particularly long, I began voting for excellent defensive shortstops. Mark Belanger, Ozzie Smith, Omar Vizquel, Rey Ordonez…on and on.
Mostly I stick to voting metal because this is America and I have been told I can vote for what I believe in. I have been fed an endless supply of bromides and hackneyed platitudes about what size the government is supposed to be or when a baby is truly alive or how a marriage should be defined or what this nation should stand for. Politics is about who gets what and how much of it. At the end of the day, I’m really just voting on whether Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Boeing are going to receive larger tax breaks based on the size of their contributions.
The horrible truth is that climate change is causing environmental catastrophes everywhere. We are engaged in an endless stream of costly, bloody foreign wars. Politicians are empty vessels who have become nearly indistinguishable from mattress salesmen. America is circling the proverbial drain and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. When someone asks me how I believe we should handle these problems, I look them square in the eyes and I tell them the only thing I can say that makes any sense to me anymore…
“Don’t blame me, I voted for Heavy Metal”
Heavy Metal Television Listings in The Alternate Dimension of Blargh
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on June 5, 2013
Every Sunday night between 5:15 and 5:17, thanks to a mixture of transcendental yoga, Nyquil and Shiatsu, my mind travels to a dimension similar to our own. This parallel universe is known simply as Blargh.
Many of the details of The Blargh Dimension are similar. For example, the San Francisco Giants have won two of the last four World Series there as well. However, there are also some major differences. For example, in Blargh, the Giants best pitcher is a 14-foot tall polar bear with 11 arms.
One of the most extreme differences between their world and ours is the role of heavy metal in their lives. The average resident of Blargh listens to roughly 22 hours of heavy metal a day. By the age of 11, all Blarghian children are tested on Venom and Slayer lyrics. If they make even one mistake, they are fed to one of the thousands of giant lobsters that live in tunnels below the cities.
I have been trying to convince people of my travels for years. However, the story is a bit far-fetched and proof is hard to come by. However, this Sunday, I was able to rip out a page from the Blarghian TV Guide and smuggle it back. Here is the evidence of the existence of this world, along with a good sampling of what the average Blarghian watches on network television (President-For-Life Agnew banned cable TV in the 1980s and, consequently, they only have three channels).
CBS
8:00-9:00 Marduk, She Wrote
Everyone’s favorite 276-year old detective Angela Lansbury teams up with Swedish metal blasphemers Marduk to solve mysteries and promote neo-fascism.
9:00-9:30 Jeff Walker, Texas Ranger
After leaving Carcass, metal legend Jeff Walker uses his extensive knowledge of human anatomy to fight crime and poor hygiene in Texas.
9:30-10:00 Touched By A Morbid Angel
A heartwarming show that features David Vincent giving fake messages from God to strangers and making them do really horrifying things to their loved ones.
10:00-11:00 The Dukes of Biohazard
Brothers Bo and Spyder Jonez speed around a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn in a car with a confederate flag painted on the roof while trying to avoid police officers and members of the Baseball Furies gang.
NBC
8:00-8:30 Leave it To Believer
Jerry Mathers stars as an Kurt Bachman, an 8-year old musical prodigy who writes Christian death metal songs and gets into all sorts of mischief with his brother Wally.
8:30-9:00 Powermad About You
An aging Minneapolis thrash band fall head over heels in love with Helen Hunt and attempt to marry her in violation of New York’s ban on polygamy.
9:00-10:00 In Battle There is No LA Law
Seven-time Emmy winning actress Jo Bench and the members of Bolt Thrower star as hip Los Angeles attorneys who drive around in sports cars while dressing as characters from Warhammer.
10:00-11:00 Falconer Crest
Lorenzo Llamas stars as a power metal vocalist who tries to wrestle control of a winery from Ronald Reagan’s ex-wife.
ABC
8:00-8:30 All In The Manson Family
Marilyn Manson is a crusty but benign racist who argues incessantly with his leftist son-in-law and humiliates his “dingbat” wife.
8:30-9:00 Newhartwork
A spin off of Jeff Walker, Texas Ranger. Walker retires and opens a bed and breakfast in a Vermont that is visited by traveling grindcore bands and Elvis impersonators.
9:00-9:30 Fantomas Island
Mike Patton, Dave Lombardo, Hervé Villechaize, and Ricardo Montalban are trapped on a magical island that is haunted by the ghost of Henry Mancini.
10:00-11:00 Highway To Hell
Bon Scott stars as a demon attempting to force wayward souls to make bad life decisions and end up condemned to eternal suffering. Michael Landon and the scuzzy looking guy who always wear the Oakland A’s hat co-star.
Researchers Link “Slayer Obsession” To Food Allergies
Posted by Keith Spillett in Health Tips for An Early Death on April 9, 2012
John Murphy At A Slayer Concert After Consuming 12 Jars of Pickle Juice
In a surprising study done by Johns Hopkins University, a direct connection has been found between being obsessed with the heavy metal band Slayer and consumption of certain classes of food. Slayer Obsession, known in medical parlance as Human Epiglottal Lymphogranuloma Lychosis or HELL, has been known to effect two in every three Slayer fans at least one time in their lives. In more serious cases of Slayer Obsession, a diet rich in certain classes of carbohydrates and proteins has been linked to symptoms as serious as the need to carve the band’s name into a person’s arm, the desire to write “SLAYER” on random Facebook message threads or even the overwhelming need to write the lyrics to “Dead Skin Mask” and other Slayer songs on inappropriate places such as church pews or children’s foreheads.
One food, unsurprisingly, that can cause Slayer addiction is barley, commonly found in beer. As many as 4 in 10 beer drinkers find themselves with mild to serious cases of HELL.
What is shocking are the other types of food that can lead to this disorder. The researchers found that people who consume more than 12 ounces of butter per day were found to frequently listen to the album “Seasons in the Abyss” for between 6 and 8 hours in an evening. Consumption of cucumbers or cottage cheese can lead to the desire to lock oneself in a room and listen to nothing but “South of Heaven” for entire weekends at a time.
The real stunner was that pickle juice is a major contributor to the disorder. Apparently pryotophan, an amino acid found in pickle juice will, in almost all cases, lead to immediate bouts of HELL and a nearly mindless sense of euphoria. Many fans at fans Slayer shows, who have recently been seen consuming entire containers of the water in pickle jars, have found themselves running wildly around in circles and running into one an other in a symptom that doctors refer to as “moshing”. Some Slayer fans have even taken to smoking and free basing pickles before shows in order to get the desired effect.
While doctors for years have believed that only the love of Jesus Christ or a good woman could help HELL sufferers, the Johns Hopkins research team believes that eating certain things can help cure the disorder. One such food is potting soil. According to their study, eating 9 ounces of mineral rich potting soil per day can lead a sharp decrease in the need to listen to Slayer. They also recommend eating at least 3 servings of donkey spleen per week.
For sufferers of this disorder, the future may seem bleak. They may feel powerless over their obsessions and symptoms. However, a diet rich in dirt and donkey parts can ensure that, in fact, HELL does not await.
Dave Lombardo Has Additional Arms Added To Keep Up With Younger Drummers
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on March 26, 2012
Dave Lombardo Today
Eventually, Father Time catches up with us all. Former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo was once thought to be the undisputed greatest metal drummer on earth. Scores of adolescents spent many a Saturday night watching Headbangers Ball and air drumming his fills from the beginning of “Seasons in The Abyss”. Nearly every great young drummer used to be called “the next Dave Lombardo”. Then, at some point, the world caught up with him.
“Some of the new wave of drummers are just quicker today. They have taken my style and improved it with a youthful energy that it’s hard for a 47-year-old to match. I needed something to get my edge back,” said Lombardo last night in an exclusive Tyranny of Tradition interview. What Lombardo did was both amazing and terrifying. In a first of its kind surgery, Lombardo had two additional arms added to his body. The arms are functional and just as useful as the two he was born with.
The possibilities for Lombardo are now nearly endless. His drumming style will most certainly take on a uniqueness that the metal world has never thought possible. He will also probably become an amazing juggler and will be able to put away groceries with the speed and dexterity his family has never seen. But, the deeper ethical concerns about a drummer being able to add limbs was the talk of the metal world after Lombardo’s announcement.
“It’s not right that someone can just have limbs added to be a better drummer,” said Battleax Kidneystone, drummer from the death metal band Malignant Pancreas. “If a major league baseball player added extra legs to run faster there is no way they’d let him play.”
Others, like Chainsaw Bloodcolon, from the band Carpathian Impetigo Sore, were less concerned. “If he wants to run around the rest of his life looking like a freak, I say, let him. I’m sticking with the two arms that Satan gave me.”
Still, Gene Hoglan, the recently named Commissioner of Metal Drumming, is looking into whether Lombardo should be allowed to play for Slayer on their next tour. Hoglan, who recently ruled that performance enhancing drugs like beer, crack and Moon Pies were allowed for drummers, is faced with an even more challenging issue here.
Some argue that this could lead to a slippery slope where drummers will have more and more arms added to be competitive. Imagine if Sean Reinert from Cynic decided he was going to add 10 arms and 14 legs. Dream Theater would take Mike Portnoy back in a second if he showed up with no less than 100 additional limbs. The next phase would be guitarists having additional fingers and singers having additional mouths with separate voice boxes. Think of how many strings a djent guitarist could put on his instrument if he had 52 fingers to play with. It is possible that if Hoglan allows Lombardo to keep his additional arms, the metal scene in five years will be indistinguishable from a circus sideshow.
However, if Hoglan rules against Lombardo, the case will surely end up in court. As most legal scholars know, the 2nd Amendment to The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. “The founding fathers wanted us to have life, liberty and the pursuit of additional limbs, otherwise they wouldn’t have written it down. Besides, what is more American than using technology to grab every possible competitive advantage over others,” said Lombardo. “Being a highly successful four-armed mutant is, in many ways, the American Dream.”
Venom Singer Saddened By Royal Snub
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 28, 2011
Uncle Cronos
There is one Brit who is still waiting for his invitation to tomorrow’s wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Cronos (Conrad Lant), the bass player and singer from the band Venom, has checked his mailbox everyday patiently waiting for a message that may never come. Why would the lead singer of a band that recorded songs like “Sons of Satan” expect an invite to one of the most sacred and important events in Britain this century? Cronos is, in fact, Kate Middleton’s uncle.
As hard as this may be to believe for many metalheads, Cronos is the brother of Kate’s mom Mary Lant. In an exclusive interview with The Tyranny of Tradition, Cronos revealed that he had a close relationship with Kate from the time she was a baby. “We were on tour supporting the Welcome to Hell album when I got the call. Little Katy was about to be born. The band and I cancelled the show and rushed to the hospital. I’ll never forget when I held her for the first time. Abaddon and I broke down in tears. It was beautiful,” recalled Cronos.
Cronos was always a big part of the future princesses life. She grew up going to Venom concerts and was even in the studio when the band recorded their third album “At War With Satan”. “Mantas had this great idea to have her voice mixed into the background of the song “Aaaaaarrghh” but it we were never able to get it to sound right.”
As Kate got older she got more involved with the band. “She started playing drums at age 7 and even sat in with us a few times during concerts. She played Buried Alive with us at a show in Coventry back during the reunion in 1995 and was amazing. She reminded me a lot of Dave Lombardo.”
When the royal couple first started dating Kate promised Cronos that they might play at the wedding if the two ever decided to tie the knot. “She had this whole idea about us playing Countess Bathory during the part of the service where she walked up to the altar. I thought it was crazy, but she kept bringing the idea up. I’d have been honored to play her wedding.”
Cronos was in touch with Kate as recently as seven months ago, but since the wedding announcement she has not returned any of his phone calls. “She used to call me her favorite uncle. She loved singing songs with me when she was a little girl. We used to sing the song “Black Metal” together. She loved doing the growling part at the end. Now she won’t even talk to me.”
There have been few mentions of Cronos’ relationship with Kate in the British press. He believes the royal family has conspired to keep the Kate Middleton/Venom connection out of the media. “There used to be video of her playing with us up on YouTube, but that was mysteriously taken down months ago. I feel like they are embarrassed by my career as one of the founding fathers of Satan influenced thrash metal. I’m not trying to get famous out of this or make money. I just want my Little Katy back.”
The Tyranny of Tradition 