88 BoaDrum NYC Rehearsal

Wowwowpowpow. Tonight, 8/8/08, at 8:08pm, at the end of North 8th Street, the Brooklyn wing of the Boredoms’ cosmic 88BoaDrum event will flap. Basically, this is 88 drummers playing full drum kits in unison accompanied by some cruising Can/Neu-style synth and guitar drones. It’s kind of an improvement on Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestras, though as a guitar player with experience playing Branca’s music I know that’s sacrilege. Since it’s happening about 100 yards from my front door, I crashed the rehearsal today,
and this thing is fully awesome. In broad daylight, with no audience, under a blue sky, the Empire State Building looking like a giant metronome, the earth was rumbling, and 176 drumsticks flashed together under the noon day sun. And after seeing some of China’s Olympic opening spectacle earlier today, my appetite for a massive unison display of mechanoid human performance was satisfied. By way of juxtaposition, tomorrow I get to see Motörhead–a living monument in honor of individualism.

LINK / List of Drummers

Excitering News

I don’t live in Ottawa, so this is weird. A couple weeks ago I was marching up Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, sending hordes of summer tourists flying with my huge stride and manly boots of solid iron. Anyway, I got a call, and while I was shouting into the phone, a heavyset dude with a ponytail and a Madonna headset flipped a flyer into my hand. I think he had a clipboard, and was leading an unsuspecting troupe of blond Midwesterners into Central Park. I got across the street, got off the phone, and realized I’d been street-teamed by Exciter. Holy hell! The funny thing is that when I was in 9th grade, I fully expected Exciter to have this kind of monster promotional machine.

So pass it on — Exciter’s new album is out now on Massacre Records:

EXCITER MYSPACE

The Gear of Satan

Demolition Hammer’s excellent “Skull Fracturing Nightmare” sits here ready for rescue, but I’ve been battling my infernal analog-digital converter for over a month now. Stupid Yamaha. The box is outstanding, but the software completely sucks. New firewire card on the way, for no logical reason it’s supposed to restore stability. So then we will rage.

UPDATE [7/26]: Okay, enough whining, problem sorta solved by routing the Yamaha inputs through a second firewire box. Let the hammers ring!

“He Likes My Shirt!”

Just for you, a photo of the spiffy Burzum shirt worn by a gay German dude getting off the subway in Brooklyn after the gay pride parade in New York last weekend. No, he had no idea who Varg Vikernes is — and yes, he assumed I was hitting on him. When Varg is out on weekend furloughs from prison in Norway, does he see this shirt in swanky boutique windows while out shopping for CDs? He was denied parole again recently, by the way. 

Swedish Death Metal Book Update

Man does not live by blog alone, and in fact the monster project for the past six months has been getting all the pieces in place to publish SWEDISH DEATH METAL by Daniel Ekeroth in a fat, dark new edition. The cover test and page proofs arrived from the printer a couple weeks back–take a look for yourself. By the end of July, every household of ghouls around the world will be able to own a copy, suitable for endless obsessing and secondary use as a butcher’s block. More to come, in the meantime check the pulse here:

Swedish Death Metal book site

Live Strong, Go See Iron Maiden

Check it out: the two heads on the right of this row of people being astonished by Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden belong to Kate Hudson and Lance Armstrong. No joke. They made out throughout “Iron Maiden,” but never nude. If they thought the gossip rags would pick up on it…well, here you go! 

I bought tickets yesterday on the cheap, and I’m so glad I did. Iron Maiden are unique among major rock bands in that they’ve never forgotten why they’re big. They work the same vein that paid off for them first in 1983, only now in more elaborate ways. And after seeing Van Halen and the Who multiple times in the past couple years for various reasons, Iron Maiden comes off looking and sounding much more impressive. I was proud to be part of a crowd of newly-minted 12-year-old Maiden fans and their equally proud doddering old dads. Best off-Broadway spectacular ever! And fastest costume changes on the old Bruce.

There was a weird incident — midway through “Powerslave,” the sound cut out altogether. The band shrugged their shoulders, looked at each other, and then began kicking a soccer ball around. This went on for at least ten minutes, and believe me the audience barely minded seeing this improvised spectacle. At one point, Bruce picked up a sarcophagus and used it to beat back the soccer ball. Funny stuff. When the power came on, he surprised me by blaming Sharon Osbourne by name in front of the massive crowd, saying she was getting her revenge and that the “wicked witch of west rides again.” Is that British humor, or does he have reason to think Sharon Osbourne still reaching out from afar fucking with Iron Maiden shows? 

Born to Die in the D-Beat

I’m putting together a D-beat episode of my Bloody Roots metal history show for Sirius, and simultaneously we’re approaching the anniversary of the booze and pills overdose death of Disclose frontman/guitarist Kawakami. Here’s what his heavily-branded gravestone looks like. I think the message of the Super Saddam Bros. doll is to enjoy life, enjoy Discharge, embrace some rules and throw others down the nearest green pipe.

History Lesson, Pt. III

[Click image to enlarge]

Hey look, it’s our founding fathers (and mother Kira Roessler), the ones that really matter. This excellent info-graphic charts the 11-year history and changing hairs of fundamental psychotic California hardcore band Black Flag, If I could get this printed onto disposable paper placemats, I’d take them with me everywhere I go and eat every meal blessed by these people I consider to be as holy as monks.

Artist unknown–but the Henry Rollins head is obviously copied from a sketch of Charles Manson, and that’s pretty goddamn funny!

Celtic Frost, R.I.P.?

“Celtic Frost singer and guitarist Tom Gabriel Fischer has left Celtic Frost due to the irresolvable, severe erosion of the personal basis so urgently required to collaborate within a band so unique, volatile, and ambitious.” 

LINK

 

Wherefore Art Thou, Iron Man?

Taking advantage of the occasion of the new Iron Man movie, The Boston Globe has posted an awesome long-form multimedia inquest into the origins of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” Delving way beyond “Can he walk and talk?”, reporter Joshua Glenn offers a handful of interpretations–all of them smart, and all funny.

LINK