Posts Tagged Sweden
Swedish Government Bans Windmilling
Posted by zenaphobe67 in General Weirdness on May 19, 2014
King Carl Gustaf XVI has become the next in a long list of world leaders to throw his weight behind the war to end all wars, The War On Metal. Using a medical controversy to justify his actions, King Gustaf has issued an edict that bans windmilling in public and private places until further notice. The ban effects all of Sweden, and states that anyone found windmilling will be fined 10,000 krona and will be exiled to picking up litter around the fjords wearing a rotary sensitive shock collar.
Sweden, which many may know, is famous for its Swedish fish candies and it’s ratio of 87 Viking metal bands to one synthpop band, is the windmilling capital of the world and this ban is seen as a royal overreach aimed at subduing the metal subculture into irrelevance. Many Swedes feel that this move was inspired by the recent outbreak of fighting in the hills of Afghanistan, where drone attacks are indiscriminately targeting mosh pits and corpse paint store fronts. The metal community in Sweden has been reeling from several previous attempts to link them to harmful behaviors, the last being a fabricated whistle blower hit piece in which many bands were accused of testing music on lab animals.
Several news agencies received anonymous VHS tapes with footage that can only be described as criminal and twisted, that shows scenes from inside an alleged “Sound Chamber of Satan” where hundreds of Eurasian Pygmy Shrews are strapped into very small cots and subjected to hours of death metal at a time. At one point in the video, the shrews have been moved into what looks like a coliseum and are hacking away at each other with swords and axes. Later shown to be a fraud , the tapes irreparably damaged the reputation of metal in Sweden and began to move public attitudes in a negative direction.
Capitalizing on this momentum, the Ministry of Health investigated a study done by Arch Enemy titled, “Windmill Your Way To A Healthy Thyroid” and alleged that the positive results could not be duplicated during double blind testing and they then turned their attention to similar reports released by the bands Dismember, Bloodbath, and At The Gates. The health benefits of windmilling hearken back to the early Vikings, and it is used in many holositc metal health treatments. Windmilling is said to cure seasonal allergies, planters warts, and even hypothyroidism, but is dismissed as pseudo science by the medical community.
In a full on media blitz, the Ministry of Health released a document dump of 2200 “studies” which linked windmilling to ailments ranging from male pattern baldness to spinal kyphosis. Public service messages were aired featuring so called “Ex-millers” giving their testimonies of how windmilling had destroyed their health and MP3 collections.
Arch Enemy vocalist, Alisa White-Gluz, says she is saddened by the political weaponizing of the innocuous tradition of windmilling and has begun to form a coalition of the milling to resist further stigmatization of the windmilling community. In the wake of the prohibition, small, secret cells of windmillers are springing up to provide practitioners of this gentle art an outlet to let their hair down and avoid the prying eyes of the law. Lobbying efforts to overturn the ban have begun by the powerful and influential cervical collar industry, as the criminalization of windmilling has brought cervical collar sales to levels not seen since the Swedish disco craze of the 1990’s.
The Sound of Joyous Suffering: A Retrophiliac’s Review of Horisont’s “Second Assault”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointless Music Reviews on April 2, 2012
Listening to the new Horisont record “Second Assault” is an adventure in time travel. You don’t simply listen to the record, you hurdle backwards towards it. I am in a darkened, smoke-filled bar. Twenty or so spectators in different states of inebriation hoot and howl arhythmically as the band spews molten rock’n’roll. Half the crowd looks like Popeye Doyle, the other half look like Tuesday Weld. A poorly dressed, ratty haired bunch of skinny kids reach into their chests and pull out their guts in the quixotic attempt to find a higher plane if even for a moment. Their suffering is ours.
It’s an imperfect fantasy, mostly because of the smoke. That itchy, uncomfortable feeling of unfamiliar scum clouding your vision. Not knowing whether to choke or sneeze. Somehow it doesn’t matter and it does. Rock’n’roll itself comes with a bit of discomfort. Loving it is a masochistic pursuit. Horisont gets that in spades. They explode everywhere, like a wayward roman candle knocked on its side. They are dangerous, blistering and blood-fanged; they are the sweat in your eyes and the exhaustion of endless impossibility.
The 70’s reek of old carpet and cheap cologne. The food isn’t nearly as good, the beer is almost always flat and no one seems to have air conditioning. The world was a dark and foreboding place. Nearly every worthwhile movie of the era ended with the protagonist getting his or her head blown off and the great forces of evil crushing the spirit of the individual. Hope seemed ridiculous. As they marched to the hangman, they wore a gallows cool on their sleeve that those living in the airbrushed, cleaner than clean, hyper polished new frontier no nothing of. Horisont belongs there and not here. When I hit play, I am there with them.
Occasionally, I hear a record where song titles don’t matter to me. I don’t want to know what the tune is about, where it was recorded or who produced it. I could care less about the album art and knowing the town where the band started playing is simply an annoyance. I just want to hear the music. Again and again. When the album completes its long-winding journey to nowhere, I can think of nothing but finding the button that will make it start all over again. For me, Horisont “Second Assault” is that type of album.
Trump Accuses Obama of Being First Overkill Drummer
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 30, 2011
Mr. Skates Goes To Washington?
In a continuing assault on the life and career of President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump accused Obama of being the drummer for the metal band Overkill on the albums “Feel The Fire” and “Taking Over“.
In an interview with syndicated conservative talk radio host Jonathan Winthrop, Trump said “If you look in the liner notes at the first two albums they have someone named Rat Skates listed as the drummer. That can’t possibly be a real name. I believe that Barack Obama was playing drums on both of those records.”
This is another in a series of accusations made by Republicans that Obama is, in fact, a “secret metalhead”. The accusations started two months ago when Glenn Beck revealed that Obama was in a thrash band in Chicago while he was working as a community organizer in the mid-1980s. Beck claimed that Obama’s band “mostly did Coroner and Slayer covers, but a few originals.”
Other reports have claimed that the band, known as Barry O’Death and the October Revolution (BODOR), recorded a demo but nearly all of the copies have been destroyed. Various media outlets have contacted three supposed members of the group but no one has agreed to go on record about having played in the band.
Trump claimed last month that one of his investigators had gotten their hands on a copy and he had heard the demo. According to Trump the sound was “very raw but pretty unoriginal. They seemed to be trying to copy Exodus ‘Bonded By Blood’ on most of the tracks.”
According to Trump, the demo had ten songs on it with titles ranging from “Destroyer of Worlds” to “When Death Rides A Horse” to “Free Healthcare for Everyone”. Obama has never directly addressed the metal rumors but in his biography Dreams from My Father he does discuss being “really impressed with the first Manowar album, particularly the epic feel of the song Battle Hymn”.
Rat Skates on Tour With Overkill in 1981
Trump supported his latest accusation by claiming that the drumming on “Feel The Fire” was extremely similar to the playing on the BODOR demo. “I have heard a lot of drummers over the years and this person who is supposedly known as Rat Skates plays just like Obama. There is no way you could hear the song Blood and Iron and think it was anyone but the future President playing. The styles are too much alike.”
Trump has encouraged Obama to come out and be forthright with the American people about his metal past. “It’s not right that the President is keeping the American people in the dark about an issue as important as his taste in music. If the President listens to thrash, death or even proto-doom, it’s important that the people know so they can make informed decisions.”
Op-Ed Response to the Sarah Palin Oystergate Scandal
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 15, 2011
If you want to find out what started this whole mess, here’s a link to the original article.
Get more coverage of Sarah Palin and Oystergate on Facebook or Twitter
There have been many scathing editorials written throughout America on the Sarah Palin Oystergate Scandal. This recent item was a column that appeared in this morning’s Fort Worth Examiner. Jonathan Winthrop, who is referred to in his bio as a “true, red blooded patriot”, writes a weekly column for the paper called “America: Love It or Leave It or Don’t”.
Even Bloodier Libel
By Jonathan Winthrop
If there’s one thing Americans have had enough of its Sarah Palin bashing. First, the liberal media machine said she was not “intellectual” enough to join their little club. Next, they said her words were causing deranged loners to turn violent. Now, they are saying that she hates Swedes. By the end of the year, they’ll be accusing her of the Kennedy assassination, breaking into the Watergate Hotel and turning Jeffery Dahmer into a cannibal. It is interesting that every time that Kenyan in the White House has his poll numbers drop or has to go to the sentencing of one of his former Chicago cronies, Sarah Palin says something that gets herself in trouble. If one looks closely, it starts to become obvious that the Obama administration, along with the wealthy Hungarian-American George Soros, are behind this latest round of Sarah bashing. Sound crazy? Let’s look at the facts.
First of all, lets clear up the comments made by Palin. We need to face the uncomfortable fact that much of what Palin said is true. Unless they started having elections recently without me noticing, Sweden is a socialist country. Tax rates for the average Swede are right around 99.3 percent. According to several studies, the average Swede works two and a half hours a week. Yet, for less than 12 hours of work a month, Swedes have full health care, a chauffeured limousine ride once a week to the local “free store” and are given up to four massages a month. And who pays for all these perks? Why the taxpayer, of course!
From a young age, Swedes are taught not to work. The most commonly used Civics Textbook in Swedish classrooms is a malignant piece of socialist propaganda called “Why Work…The Government Will Pay You Anyway”. The crime rate among Swedish teens is appalling. By the age of 15, 1 in 2 Swedes has committed a violent crime, stolen a car or missed more than 10 days of school in a year. Most young Swedes wile away their time hanging out with friends or listening to violent so-called “heavy metal music” or surfing on the Internet in these things they like to call “chat rooms”. Their government sponsored schools and socialist parents are getting them ready for a life of reading Lenin, taking government handouts and mugging senior citizens all while the US tax payer foots the bill. In this context, Palin’s point makes a good deal of sense. Do we want our young men and women forsaking their commitment to truth, justice and the American way and becoming like young Swedes? I, for one, do not.
Much of the rest of the story includes your usual cast of characters. Wildly inaccurate MSNBC stories, articles written by deranged (George Soros sponsored) bloggers and money hungry former employees and their fictitious accounts of anti-Swedish tirades by the Palin family. All the while, the Obama administration skillfully manipulates the media into anti-Sarah commentary and Swede-baiting. It is not a coincidence that several of the states with large Swedish-American populations were toss-up states during the 2008 election. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana could all sway the 2012 election in favor of Obama. The Obama administration, a ruthless organization of Chicago pols bent on forcing all working people to their knees at the altar of Godless Islamic Communism, is again playing puppet master, pulling the strings of the media in order to force good people to believe bad things.
Before we join in with the legions of torch carrying former 60’s love children eager to step on the throats of hard working Americans with their collective Birkenstocks, let’s remember the lessons of 9/11. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The price of eternal vigilance is abiding loyalty. The price of abiding loyalty is everlasting devotion. Let us never forget the dream our forefathers struggled and died for. Let us never forget the price some have paid and others may pay and still others haven’t paid. We must defend freedom! We must defend liberty! We must defend Sarah!
National News Coverage of Sarah Palin and Oystergate!!!
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 14, 2011
I am amazed at what has happened. The Sarah Palin “Oystergate” scandal is becoming a major national news story!!! I just pulled this off of the wire 10 minutes ago. (If you are just finding out about this story here are links to the original article and Palin’s reply)
Click here for up to the minute coverage of Sarah Palin and the Oystergate scandal!!!
Angry Swedish Protestors In Front of The Ikea in Bloomington, Minnesota
Bloomington, MN (API)-In a bizarre scandal that is being called “Oystergate”, Sarah Palin is being accused of having a deep hatred of Swedish people. This story began when Palin agreed to write a music interview on a small website called “The Tyranny of Tradition”. Palin’s review, in which she shared her feelings about music including a love for the rock group The Blue Oyster Cult, started off as a simple discussion of heavy metal and quickly turned into an anti-Swedish diatribe where she claimed to be concerned about “slick talking Swedish terrorists” and referred to the government of Sweden as being “brutal and oppressive”. In a follow-up email, Palin added fuel to the fire by misquoting William Shakespeare and saying that there was “something rotten in the state of Sweden”.
The Swedish Embassy officially condemned Palin’s remarks. Swedish spokesman Per Gustafson said, “The Swedish people are deeply offended by Palin’s statement. Anti-Swedism has no place in the world of mature political communication.”
Late in the afternoon, things took a decided turn for the worse for the Palin camp. Helen Blomquist, the personal housekeeper for the Palins from 2006 until 2008, dropped a bombshell when she accused Palin of using anti-Swedish language around their Wasilla home. According to Blomquist, during a heated meeting with one of her top advisors, Palin shouted “Grow up! Stop acting like such a Swede!”
Blomquist also claims that, as a sick joke, she was regularly pelted with Swedish fish and subjected to mocking anti-Swede insults by Mrs. Palin and her husband Todd.
In the wake of the growing scandal, the Palin camp has issued a statement saying, “Sarah has nothing but love and appreciation for the Swedish people. The comments of Mrs. Blomquist are entirely untrue. Any accusations of Anti-Swedism are purely a creation of the left-wing media.”
However, growing tension has clearly plagued Palin’s staff. Hilda Erickson, Palin’s Chief of Swedish Relations, resigned this afternoon citing “personal, family related reasons.”
Swedish-Americans have taken to the streets to voice their outrage at Palin’s comments. A group of nearly 500 angry Swedes stood in front of the IKEA in Bloomington, Minnesota today carrying protest signs, shouting “Palin hates Swedes” and proudly singing the Swedish National Anthem. Hilmar Lindquist, head of the Swedes For America group, has demanded an apology. Until Palin apologizes, Lindquist and several of his followers have begun a 40 day lingonberry-only fast.
Oystergate!?!?! Sarah Palin Responds Angrily
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 14, 2011
Click here for up to the minute coverage of Sarah Palin and the Oystergate scandal!!!
Swede Revenge!!!
This was in my inbox about a half an hour ago. In case you missed how this whole thing started, here’s a link to the original article. I’m really not sure what to think about anything anymore. Things have gotten simply too weird.
Anyway, here’s Sarah…
Keith,
I want to clear up some misconceptions that came up in my review of Ghost’s “Opus Eponymous”. I have received a good amount of angry emails from people who felt that I made remarks that were demeaning towards Swedish people. I even received an angry message from the Swedish embassy. I want to go on the record as saying I have nothing but respect and admiration for the Swedish people. Some of the most significant Americans of the last 100 years have been Swedes. John W. Nordstrom, founder of the Nordstrom’s retail chain, was born in Sweden. Astronaut and American hero Buzz Aldrin is part Swedish. Even wonderful entertainers like Julia Roberts and Tippi Hedren claim Sweden part of their great ancestry.
Just so you know, I was one of the first shoppers at IKEA when it opened in Anchorage. They have all of those sturdy pieces of furniture with the silly names. I think we bought a Flarn for Piper’s room that day. Every Sunday, Todd and I drive an hour to treat the family to breakfast at the closest IHOP over in the town of Chuloonawick. Every week without fail I order the Swedish pancakes. Surprisingly enough, both my and Todd’s favorite candy are Swedish fish. I ask you, do I sound like someone who hates Swedish people?
The point I was trying to make was not that we should hate all Swedes or the country of Sweden. Sweden is clearly an up and coming country. They have their own embassy, which tells you a lot about them. IKEA has a business model all Americans can be proud of. Once they grow out of their socialist phase like Russia did, they could easily rejoin the great nations that have refuted socialism and embraced values we can all stand for. The point I was trying to make in the article really had nothing to do with Swedes. It was more the idea that we should naturally be aware that some foreigners are against what we stand for and are dangerous. Since we can never be quite sure which ones are the bad ones, we must naturally be aware of all of them and treat them with appropriate caution. There is nothing wrong with a little bit of vigilance when our safety and well-being is at stake. When we are dealing from refuges from a socialist country like Sweden we must be even more prepared for the threat of potential anti-Americanism or worse. Even a writer and poet as great as Shakespeare understood this. He put it brilliantly when he wrote those now famous words “something is rotten in the state of Sweden.” I am clearly not the only one with these sorts of concerns.
I was very upset by your comments last night on MSNBC. After reading your article about the Beatles, I was sure you were someone I had a good deal in common with. How wrong I was! The statement you made about “condoning my metalheadedness but not my blockheadedness” was simply unfair. First of all, metalheadedness is not a word. Secondly, it upset me to no end to hear you give ammunition to an arm of the liberal media empire like MSNBC. They are clearly out to destroy me. In a week where I’ve experienced such awful attacks and personal suffering I would think you could have been a bit nicer. I simply will not write anything else for your stupid little blog.
Sarah
The Most Amazing Thing That Has Ever Happened To Me….THANK YOU SARAH PALIN!!!!
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointless Music Reviews, The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 12, 2011
A Real Iron Maiden!!!
Some of you may have heard the big news today, but if you haven’t, I will tell you that today is easily the biggest day in the history of The Tyranny of Tradition blog. I have spent most of the last 24 hours dealing with calls from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and even the 700 Club. In order to understand what is about to happen I need to give you some back-story. About 3 months ago, a good friend of mine told me that he remembered at an early Sarah Palin speech during the 2008 campaign she came out to speak to the opening riff from Godzilla by the Blue Oyster Cult. I assumed he was kidding, but he was pretty insistent about it so I decided to look it up. Sure enough, I found the footage along with an interview with her talking about music and she mentioned listening to the Blue Oyster Cult when she was in high school. Being a die-hard Blue Oyster Cult fan, this utterly blew my mind. I wanted to find out if she was still a fan so I emailed her people again and again but never got a response. I figured that she had just blown it off as a series of bizarre emails and forgot about the whole thing. Then, about a week ago…I got an email FROM HER. I was astonished. She wrote me this lengthy letter thanking me for writing to her telling me all about her love for the Blue Oyster Cult. This was too much for me. I nearly had a heart attack. I decided to push things a step further and sent her a request to write a short piece for my blog. I had been listening nonstop to a record by a band called Ghost. The album, “Opus Eponymous”, is absolutely fantastic. On a whim, I decided to ask her to listen to it and write a review. Again, I was certain that I would never in a million years get a reply, but as I opened my inbox this morning I found the following email…
Keith,
Thanks for offering me a chance to write a review for your blog. I have been quite busy recently but I took a few moments to put something together for you. Hope you like it.
Yours truly,
Sarah
A Review of Ghost “Opus Eponymous”
By Sarah Palin
Over the last few years, many of you have gotten to know me as Sarah the candidate, or Sarah the Governor, or Sarah the Mother, but I want to take this opportunity to show you another side of me. Today, I want to introduce you to Sarah the Metalhead. A lot of people think of me as some kind of stuffed shirt who doesn’t know how to rock out. Nothing could be further from the truth. Todd and I are both huge fans of heavy metal. On one of our first dates, Todd took me to the nicest restaurant in Wasilla, a wonderful little Mexican place called El Taco that is owned by our close family friend Jerry O’Malley. To impress me, he hired the mariachi band to play the Blue Oyster Cult song “Astronomy”. At that moment, I knew I was in love. Of all metal and hard rock bands, I have always had a special place in my heart for the Blue Oyster Cult. I love them so much that I even tried to get Bristol and Piper’s Jazzercise instructor to use “Burnin’ For You” as part of their warm-up activities. When we were working on Sarah Palin’s America for TLC, we tried to film a sequence where we shot a moose with a rocket launcher from a moving chopper. To get ready to use this fine piece of military machinery, I listened to the Blue Oyster Cult’s song “Vengeance: The Pact”. Unfortunately, I missed the moose and the segment had to be cut, but that song really got me ready to go.
I recently picked up a copy of a CD by a band named Ghost called “Opus Eponymous” that reminded me a lot of what’s great about the Blue Oyster Cult. The album is filled with great solos, sweeping choruses and driving riffs. When I first heard the song, “Ritual” I knew I was going to enjoy their sound. There are definitely other influences on this album as well. I noticed a lot of moments that reminded me of some of the work done by the great King Diamond on the early records by Mercyful Fate, particularly the song “Elizabeth”.
At first, I really loved the album but then I found out some things about Ghost that troubled me greatly. First of all, they make reference to Satan on several occasions on this album. There are also a lot of violent lyrics. As you know, I am strongly against young people listening to violent music. This is not the sort of thing that impressionable children should be listening to. The thing that disturbed even more was the fact that Ghost is Swedish. They seemed to speak English very well so I, of course, assumed that they were American. It makes you think that a Swede could pretend to be an American an easily get away with it. A slick talking Swedish terrorist could easily get past one of those TSA government workers and bring weapons of mass destruction into our country. I don’t want to paint all Swedes with the same brush. There are probably some good Swedes out there, but it is a fact that the government of Sweden is socialist. Ghost may not be a socialist band. They may have fled Sweden to escape their brutal and oppressive government, but they have grown up living the socialist life and these things can change a person. They probably would come here expecting some sort of government hand out if they didn’t sell enough records. We have to at least consider the possibility that their music is meant as a Trojan horse to lead our young people to violence, Satanism and the belief that the government is going to solve all of their problems.
I would advise you to not buy this album in spite of the excellent quality of the music. There are plenty of good old fashion, red-blooded American metal bands that are struggling to sell records. Why give good hard earned, American money to a group of people who are just going to give it away to people who don’t share our values?
Read Sarah Palin’s response to the “Oystergate” controversy caused by this article.
The Tyranny of Tradition 