The definition of chutzpah: looking like this man and calling somebody else a hollow-eyed onanist. Bonus: Nick Cohen being tired and emotional at the Orwell Prize award ceremony last year — an oldie but goodie.
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Metal Monday: the pride of Zeeland
The nineth Metal Monday sees us reach the “G” and what better band to showcase that Zeeland’s pride, Gorefest? It was actually my younger brother who discovered them first. He was then a much more intense metalhead than I was, but since then has migrated through playing LARP and D’nD into a Dutch Neil the hippie, without changing much both in his convictions and look… Whereas I mostly dabbled in bands like Iron Maiden and Anthrax, he went for the full death/black metal experience and hence found out about Gorefest early, just before their first cd came out in 1991. That cd, Mindloss for me is still one of the classic death metal albums, one that every metalhead should have in their collection; their later work is less essential.
Confessions of a Serial Killer:
Reality – When You Die:
Decomposed:
Tangled in Gore (from the demo)
Mad bastards
As Nick Mamatas introduced this video, this is what the right wingers are scared of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will mean to the US Army:
It’s great to see the yanks take up the traditional role of the poms so well. British squaddies have always prided themselves on how mad they are but this was a nice attempt at usurping that role. But it’s still not as mad as this:
UPDATE:a late entry courtesy of the Royal Navy:
Afghani civilians wanted to put in an entry in the hilarious music video sweepstakes as well, but the set was bombed by the US Airforce.
Metal Monday: losing my religion
It’s weird how bandnames cluster around certain letters of the alphabet. De and E were lousy with bands I like and so will M & S be, but bands with a name starting with “F”? Though the BNR Metal Pages list eightytwo I could only think of one that I actually knew and liked. You know this one and you know this song, as it was inescapable back in the early nineties:
Faith No More – Epic
I always thought poor old Faith No More were a victim of the rise of grunge. Like quite a few bands from around that time they were busy mixing up metal with rap with hardcore punk and along came the sullen Nirvana boys with what was basically just more mopey guitar based rock and that was the end of that.
Carl Macek
Carl Macek, somebody I really only knew from the opening credits to Robotech, has died. He was somewhat of a object of hatred in hardcore anime fandom for his butchery of various unrelated anime series (Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA) into the Americanised Robotech, but as the linked to eulogy says:
Carl had his critics. But one thing is certain: the popularity of anime in the North America would not be where it is today without Macek’s groundbreaking work on Robotech and his efforts on behalf of Streamline Pictures.
Myself, I had no idea about any of this controversy when I first discovered Robotech on Superchannel, back in 1987? 1988?, early on Saturday mornings. Sandwiched between all the crappy American cartoons its quality stood out and it’s led to a lifelong interest in anime.