Posts Tagged Opeth
Otep To Re-Release Classic “Blackwater Park” Album in July
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 7, 2014
Next month, Oscar nominated artists Otep plan to re-release the album that redefined the boundaries of progressive metal, “Blackwater Park”. The band, which is named after the Greek Sun god Otep, has become one of the top selling metal acts in world since the album’s release in 1983.
The band’s lead singer Otep Night Shyamalan, a noted thespian and director of the popular film “The Sixth Sense”, has become extremely well known for her outspoken political views. Her strong opinions have made her an important figure both in and out of the world of heavy metal. She was a noted speaker at the Republican National Convention back in 2008 and was cited several times by then-Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin as “a positive voice for values and the traditional American way of life” during campaign speeches.
This summer Otep will be headlining the Mayhem Tour. Bassist Mikael Akerfeldt has hinted that the band plans to play their seminal “Rust In Peace” album from beginning to end on several tour dates, but has not indicated which ones. During a recent concert in Antarctica, the band went back to their roots and played several songs off of their first album “Show No Mercy”.
The band’s well-known singer Oprah Shamaya, whose Grammy winning television talk show went off the air back in 2011, recently issued a controversial tweet on MySpace where she called into question “fake news sites” like Tyranny of Tradition and cnn.com. In the tweets, she referred to herself as a “cultural arsonist” and threatened to set mimes on fire. Our reporters contacted several mimes that refused comment.
While the mimes have been silent on this issue, a representative from the heavy metal rock band Slayer indicated that everything that has been written in this article is completely untrue. “Anyone who knows Slayer knows that none of the members of the band Otep would even THINK about protesting the funeral of former Yankees and Mariners first baseman Ken Phelps,” said Slayer publicist and PMRC spokesperson Josephine McCarthy.
Pastor Ken Phelps Only Moments Before Tyranny of Tradition Made Up Lies About him
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.
Watching Ghost From The Masquerade Parking Lot
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointless Music Reviews on May 14, 2012
A wise man once told me not to pay for what you can get for free. He’s currently doing a stretch of 2 to 5 years at Rikers Island for passing bad checks, but his point was well taken. After my ticket for Saturday night’s Ghost, Opeth, Mastodon show at The Masquearde in balmy Atlanta, Georgia fell through, I was faced with two possible futures. One involved me jumping in my car, heading over to The Varsity and drowing my sorrows in 12 pimento cheese sandwiches and the other involved me standing out in the parking lot and craning my neck around some light poles to get a glimpse of Ghost, the current greatest band in the history of the universe. The choice was obvious.
By the time I got to a spot that allowed me to view 1/12th of the stage, they had already launched into a rip-roaring version of their Mercyful Fate tinged masterpiece “Elizabeth”. Apparently, I was not the only person leery of actually paying to see a concert. There were two 15-year-olds staring over the fence with expressions of cold, awe-struck horror. One of them had his “throwback” Bullet For My Valentine “Scream, Aim, Fire” shirt on and the other one looked like he was dressed for the eventual random onset of a golf match. They clearly were in the wrong place:
Metal Kid #1: Why is the singer of Mastodon wearing a Pope hat?
Metal Kid #2: I don’t think that’s Mastodon. That’s probably Opeth.
Me: No….that’s Ghost. Ever heard of them?
Both Kids at Once: No????
Me: They are completely crazy. Keep watching. You’ll see some terrible things.
Metal Kid #2: What do you mean?
Me: Well, first of all, you know where he got that hat from?
Metal Kid #1”: No.
Me: He stole it from the real Pope.
Metal Kid #1: No….No way! Is that true?!?!
Me: Oh yeah. These guys are pure evil. The drummer punched the Pope one time at an IKEA in Munich and the singer took the hat and ran. They mugged the Pope for Godsakes! They were supposed to play America a year ago but they were banned from the United States.
Metal Kid #2: Whoa! What for?
Me: They are into trafficking and selling animal organs. The singer got caught trying to sneak 150 sheep livers into his suitcase when they went through customs. It was a big international incident. That and the whole thing with the walrus got them into a bunch of trouble….
Metal Kid #1: (horrified) Walrus??? What happened with the walrus???
Me: Jesus, doesn’t anyone read the newspaper anymore!!!! They did a concert in Poland and at the end of the show they brought a walrus on stage and beat it to death with hammers. They cut it up and gave pieces to everyone in the audience. It was unbelievable. They put birthday candles in each of the pieces! People ate it completely raw and something like 46 people died of food poisoning. Horrible! That’s what got them on the FBI’s 12 Most Wanted List.
Metal Kid #2: Oh my god! Wow! These guys are awesome!
Metal Kid #1: Do you think they’ll kill a walrus tonight?
Me: God no! They found religion and recently became Jehovah’s Witnesses. They swore off all of that praising Satan and slaughtering animal stuff and now they go door to door preaching The Word. The guitarist, the one dressed like a Jawa from Star Wars, he sold me a copy of Watchtower magazine last month.
Metal Kid #1: Whoa!!!! That’s amazing!
I quickly tired of filling the minds of these kids with insidious poison and began to focus my attention onto the mellifluous tones of Ghost. The solo from Ritual was casacading to its nearly perfect peak when I became aware of a terrible presence only inches from my right arm. As the song ended, I turned and came face to face with The Hipster With the Glass Eye.
The fella was probably six foot three and 98 pounds soaking wet. Imagine your average beardo coffee shop barista decked out in his best Piggly Wiggly tee-shirt and you’ve basically got a mental image of the dude I was looking at. Except this person had a glass eye. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Did he have some terrible accident Vespa racing? Was this some kind of sadistic, post-ironic fashion statement? Did he pull the original eye out in frustration when he couldn’t find a copy of the new Band of Horses album? Do they sell glass eyes at Urban Outfitters now? This rare specimen of humanity had my interest for a full two minutes worth of conversation. Then, things got ugly.
Me: Nobody knows who Ghost is. They’ve only done two interviews. Both of them were in caves. The interviewers were blindfolded and driven hours away to a secure location. They did the interviews wearing hoods!
Hipster With The Glass Eye: So, no one knows who they are?
Me: No one!
Hipster With The Glass Eye: (excitedly) Wow, so they are kinda like Banksy??? That’s awesome!
I looked away and shook my head in horror. An uncomfortable, awkward silence fell over us both. He stood there waiting for a response that would never come. I decided that the night was officially over. I walked to my car filled with hopelessness and despair. At least the band was good.
The Tyranny of Tradition 