The Year Of The Tiger

As of February 15^th, 2010, it’s officially the Year of the Tiger. This has been confirmed by the local Chinese. More specifically—and according to their 12-year, five-element (earth, fire, water, metal, wood) calendar cycle—it’s the Year of the Metal Tiger. Again, this is what the local Chinese tell us. One might be inclined to think this bodes well for the readers of Decibel magazine. But the last two tiger years, 1986 and 1998, were pretty much polar opposites as far as actual metal was concerned.

Even though 1986 was technically a Fire Tiger year, that flaming zodiacal feline had a heart of solid steel. Read the pivotal release schedule and, like, weep: Master Of Puppets (March 2); Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? (July 20); Orgasmatron (August 9); Somewhere In Time (September 29) and Reign In Blood (October 7).

1986 was also the year the Melvins debuted with Six Songs. It was the year the Cro-Mags tore the Lower East Side a new one with Age Of Quarrel. King Diamond unleashed their full-length debut, Fatal Portrait. Death cranked out their last demo, Mutilation, before finally debuting on wax the following year. Let’s not forget Possessed’s Beyond The Gates, Sepultura’s Morbid Visions or Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends. Meanwhile, Mayhem recorded their first demo, Pure Fucking Armageddon. Napalm Death recorded the first half of Scum. Saint Vitus recorded Born Too Late, though it wouldn’t be released for more than a year. And Repulsion recorded Horrified, which would remain unreleased for three years.

Then there’s the most metal movie of the ’80s, River’s Edge. Though it didn’t hit US theaters until May of 1987, it was shot in ’86 and technically debuted in August of that year at the Montreal World Film Festival. Complete with a Metal Blade soundtrack boasting four Slayer jams, a Fates Warning song and the unstoppable Hallow’s Eve cut “Lethal Tendencies” (arguably the precursor to Obituary’s entire musical aesthetic), it was also the only film that year to feature copious weed use, heavy drinking, at least one totally naked dead girl and Dennis Hopper rocking a prosthetic leg. And yeah: He ate so much pussy that year, his beard looked like a glazed donut.

Of course, 1986 wasn’t all peaches and cream and glazed donuts: Thin Lizzy main man Phil Lynott passed away on January 4—technically not the Year of the Tiger, which didn’t officially begin (according to the local Chinese) until February 9^th, but still. Cliff Burton’s untimely demise occurred on September 27^th. Priest released Turbo. Van Halen did their first album with Sammy Hagar. Black Flag went tits up. Black Sabbath was essentially Tony Iommi’s vanity project, with Glenn Hughes replacing fellow Deep Purple alum Ian Gillan at the mic on Seventh Star, an album that had a song—technically a Black Sabbath song—called “No Stranger To Love.” Meanwhile, Ozzy blew out his hair and went all “Shot In The Dark” on us.

Compare the above awesomeness (minus the last paragraph) to the metal landscape of 1998. Slayer released their worst album, Diabolus In Musica. Metallica grunted out a double album of covers, Garage Inc. Motörhead released Snake Bite Love—not terrible, but not Orgasmatron. Maiden’s Virtual XI doesn’t even deserve to be in the same sentence with Somewhere In Time (and yet, there it is). Meanwhile, Max Cavalera gave Sepultura the finger and graced us with the first Soulfly album. Van Halen finally ditched Sammy Hagar… for Gary Cherone. Sabbath’s original lineup reunited, but a new album never materialized—mercifully, it seems. And Priest were in no better shape than they were a dozen years before, farting out a live album (’98 Live Meltdown) with Ripper Owens at the helm.

In their fetal stages in ’86, the classic American death metal bands were bumming us out by ’98. Cannibal Corpse bequeathed the ho-hum Gallery Of Suicide. Obituary released a posthumous live album appropriately entitled Dead. David Vincent had split Morbid Angel, leaving them to record Formulas Fatal To The Flesh with Steve Tucker. Death released their swansong, The Sound Of Perseverance. Being perhaps better attuned to the significance of cosmic movements, most of the major black metal bands (Darkthrone, Mayhem, Immortal, Burzum, Emperor) didn’t bother to release albums in 1998.

The plus side was minimal: The first Queens Of The Stone Age album came out in ’98. Sleep’s Jerusalem finally saw the light of day. Converge released When Forever Comes Crashing. Dillinger Escape Plan released Under The Running Board. Spiritual Beggars released their best album, Mantra III. Iron Monkey’s Our Problem came out, as did Electric Wizard’s Supercoven EP, Buzzov*en’s final studio album and Scissorfight’s Balls Deep. The best movie of the year was The Big Lebowski—not even vaguely metal, but well worth mentioning in a year with so little going for it.

What this means for our current Year of the Tiger is anyone’s guess. For whatever reason, the local Chinese remain mum on the subject.

This bullshit originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of Decibel magazine.

The Music Of Decline

Decaying states and men ripe for doom do not, of course, lack music either, but their music is not serene.
—Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, 1943

Ladies and gentlemen, the fabled doomsday may yet be upon us. Mayan 2012 prophecies and the inane ravings of Alaska’s ex-governor (and her Christian fundamentalist ilk) not withstanding, the aberrations that have appeared in the filament of our daily lives are too numerous to count and too obvious to ignore. Here at Decibel magazine, the signs are more or less clear. The vast majority of the “music” being churned out at an alarming rate by artists of the musical and “con-” variety is severely lacking in those qualities that one might attribute to music or even “art.” There is no need to name names. Fingering the individual culprits would not only take forever (they are multiplying and reproducing as we *speak*); such a task would also prove pointless. The system itself is broken, perhaps irreparably so. The music of decline has sounded.

We need only to look to Herman Hesse, the late, great philosopher and poet, for confirmation. Back in 1943, at the height of World War II, a full five years before Ozzy Osbourne was even swimming in his dad’s ballbag, Hesse foresaw the pox that vexes and blights us. That was the year the Nobel Prize-winning author’s futuristic novel The Glass Bead Game, alternately known as Magister Ludi, was first published in Switzerland. (Hesse’s clairvoyance may stretch back even further—he began writing the book in 1931.) “The ‘music of decline,’ has sounded, as in the wonderful Chinese fable,” Hesse wrote. “Like a thrumming bass on the organ, its reverberations faded slowly out over decades; its throbbing could be heard in the corruption of schools, periodicals, and universities, in melancholia and insanity among those artists and critics who could still be taken seriously; it raged as untrammeled and amateurish overproduction in all the arts.”

Hesse’s compelling prediction obviously speaks to a number of no less important symptoms, but for our purposes, it is this “untrammeled and amateurish overproduction” that concerns us here today. He continues: “If music is not serene, people grumble and life is deranged. All this arises from mistaking the nature of music and seeking only tempestuous tonal effects. Therefore, the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted.”

Have truer words ever been spoken, ladies and gentlemen, in regards to our ongoing state of affairs? One could argue convincingly that our government has been corrupt since its inception, but when we overlay the timeworn narrative of rock n’ roll, starting with its derivation from blues and early and abating perception as “immoral” (a la jazz) and its subsequent offshoot into heavy metal, we arrive at a junction where the history of our nation and that of its music become inextricably intertwined. (See: the rise of Elvis under Eisenhower; the British Invasion under Johnson; the rise of Hendrix/Joplin/Morrison, as survivors of their counterpart in abrupt mortality, Kennedy, under Johnson and Nixon; the decline of Elvis under Nixon, the rise of hardcore and thrash under Reagan, etc.) Fast forward to the ’90s under Bill Clinton: As the middle class idles in obesity and disengaged happiness, the Disneyfication of America ensues via the saccharine pop stylings of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears while heavy metal debases itself as “nu-metal” via Korn and Limp Bizkit. The latter prove to be harbingers of decline under the next administration—not of music, but rather of the nation itself. Enter 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Patriot Act, etc. Meanwhile, extreme music gets fucking awesome during the Dubya years and the increasingly robust Internet Age with its attendant blogosphere, though now the coverage of said music (save for Decibel, of course) becomes more scattershot than ever. Hesse foresaw this as well: “A torrent of zealous scribbling poured out over every ephemeral incident, and in quality, assortment, and phraseology all this material bore the mark of mass goods rapidly and irresponsibly turned out.”

As a nation, it appears we have made yet another cultural flip-flop under the patronage of Barack Obama. While our political future seems at least somewhat more auspicious, bad music has again proliferated on both sides of the mainstream/underground divide, polluting the pages of publications both print (sadly, even of Decibel, though the offenders are generally called out as such) and digital. What does this mean for our beloved heavy metal? And in terms of America’s future as the lone superpower cowering in the long economic and military shadow of China? Again, Hesse gave us the answer almost 70 years ago: “We recall that in the legendary China of the Old Kings, music was accorded a dominant place in state and court. It held that if music throve, all was well with culture and morality and with the kingdom itself… If music decayed, that was taken as a sure sign of the downfall of the regime and state. The poets told horrific fables about the forbidden, diabolic, heaven-offending keys, such as the Tsing Shang key, and Tsing Tse, the ‘music of decline’; no sooner were these wicked notes struck in the Royal Palace than the sky darkened, the walls trembled and collapsed, and kingdom and sovereign went to their doom.”

This bullshit originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of Decibel magazine.

Talking Points

Sometimes I wonder about you, man. I really do. Especially when you say things like, “If Euronymous were alive today, he’d be a fat, sad alcoholic roadie-ing for King Diamond,” or “Everybody knows that Immolation have gone downhill since their second demo,” or “If I ever see the drummer from Cunt Stabber again, I’ll kick his fucking ass.”

But will you? Kick his ass, I mean? Somehow, I doubt it. We both know you’ll just cower behind your boy Marty from Sphincter Drill and nervously sip your Bud Chelada or whatever. (How can you drink that rotgut, by the way? It smells like B.O.) Besides, the drummer from Cunt Stabber is pretty big and beefy and you’re kinda doughy and full of shit. Keep pouring that sewage down your gullet and making empty threats, though. I’m sure it’ll all work out.

Sometimes I just wanna pull you aside and tell you to shut your huge annoying face. But I don’t, because I’m your friend, and friends stick together through thick and thin. But sometimes being a good friend means saving one of your more loudmouth friends from himself—and from the unforgiving fists of others who, try as they might, cannot resist the overwhelming impulse to reshape that mouth into something considerably less loud.

The other night at the bar when you made that unfriendly comment about that one dude’s girlfriend, I thought he was gonna twist your head off and kick a fucking field goal with it. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he did. I know she was snobby and overbearing—and yeah, she did kind of look like James Gandolfini—but you don’t always have to say the first thing that pops into your head.

There are other things we should probably discuss. I think I mentioned this before, but you really gotta work out this whole thing with Lester and his sister. I realize that she spent a lot of time making those capes for us, but no one asked her to do it and not only does she expect us to wear them onstage, but now I hear that she expects to be paid as well. I know we agreed to not use the word “gay” in a negative way ever since Lester came out, but wearing capes onstage is just, well… yeah. I don’t really see us as a “wizard metal” band, anyway.

Also, I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after you guys at the practice space. You’re always leaving beer cans and fast food wrappers all over the place, and nobody except me ever lifts a fucking finger to pick any of it up. And don’t even get me started on Bobby’s face pubes, which are scattered all over the floor like greasy little curly reminders that I continue to play in a band with that asshole. He can’t grow a real beard, so why doesn’t he just shave that shit off?

If I seem like I’m throwing a fit here, it’s because we all know I carry this whole goddamn operation on my back like it was my own newborn son. But I’m not gonna baby-sit you guys anymore. Straighten up and fly right or you’ll be looking for a new lead keyboardist who also does awesome backup vocals. Good luck with that.

This bullshit originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of Decibel magazine.

Kulted

I awoke to a shotgun muzzle in my eye and a husky Non-Perceptic instructing me to get my faggot ass out of bed before he shot my gay face off. He had onion breath and wore a bulletproof vest bearing the letters "A," "T" and "F."

It appears that the shit had finally hit the fan. A dozen years of service and worship—not to mention the generous donation of life savings—and we come to find out that not only is the Honorable Countess Von Hellschmidt neither honorable nor a countess but also that her real name is Becky Griswold and she’s from Fall River, MA? I mean, can you imagine? And now the rest of us are out on the street, just like that. We didn’t know about the embezzlement, the tax evasion, the bestiality … okay, maybe we knew a little bit about the bestiality. I never actually witnessed it with my own eyes, but when the grapevine whispers, us Perceptics tend to listen. Mostly because the Honorable Countess never allowed books, newspapers or television up in this pig. Radios and the Internet were also strictly forbidden. She said that such devices only dimmed the Perceptic light inside of us.

We were on the verge of moving the whole operation to Montenegro, too—free from the Non-Perceptic clutches of the federal government and all of its oppressive departmental acronyms. Another six months and we’d have been occupying a higher plane of spiritual existence, nestled safely in the Slavic bosom of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s really too bad, because we had a good thing going. We grew our own crops, installed solar panels, dug compost pits. With the exception of our water supply, we were almost entirely off the grid. Life was simple: Each of us was issued a couple of pale yellow dressing gowns, a pair of sandals, a prayer mat, and a gardening tool. I worked my way up from hedge clipper to leaf blower inside of 18 months. I was a favorite of the den mother’s, too. On Burning Ring Of Fire & Advanced Behavior Mod night (every other Thursday, 7pm in the rec hall), we’d sneak away and do the business in a pantry just off the main kitchen. The staff was heavily sedated, of course, and took no notice of us.

They locked us in our rooms every night promptly at 10. After living in the Travolta wing of the Hervé Villechaize Dormitory for 33 months or so, the den mother began visiting me after lights-out. Sometimes, we would escape to the verandah for a quick telekinesis session and a round of naked Slip N’ Slide. Once in a while, the Honorable Countess would join us, her pendulous breasts spilling over the front of her distended belly like a pair of wet hams. After a few all-too-brief hours of gently lubed debauchery, I would be in an elevated trance state, in love with the cosmos, my fellow Perceptics and my beatific life at the compound. Nevertheless, I would be remanded back to my room to practice my psychic stress positions.

Meanwhile, my Kirlian photography classes continued unabated, and by 1999 my clearance level was relatively high. That’s when it all came crashing down, just days before the Honorable Countess had promised us that the impending millennium would signal the Great Xagog’s return to the earthly realm, upon which he would wipe out many of the Honorable Countess’ most contemptible mortal enemies, and the streets of Utopia Acres would run red with the blood of infidels or whatever. Instead, the Feds broke the door down, seized the entire compound, and kicked us all to the curb. It was a black day in Broward County, alright: Turns out the Honorable Countess was a total fraud, a former madam and probably a horse-fucker. And to think of all the things I used to do to her with my mouth.

This bullshit originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Decibel magazine.

Beyond Thunderstick

The best thing about being white on Atlanta public transportation is that no one wants to sit next to me.

—Jim Goad, August 20, 2009

Thunderstick and I had only been at the fairgrounds for an hour, but it was painfully clear that I’d made a terrible mistake. It was barely one o’clock in the afternoon and he was already shitfaced. He had exposed himself in plain view of the Tilt-A-Whirl, and I’d just spent the last 20 minutes convincing the local constabulary that Thunderstick was mentally ill, not drunk, and that I was his chaperone from the group home and he had just gotten away from me for an instant and no, sir, officer, it absolutely would not happen again.

“What’s with the mask?”

This from an oily teenage “security” enforcer who had suddenly materialized in the officer’s considerable shadow. The cop, with his orange-tinted Oakleys and walrus mustache, shot me a look indicating that he, too, would like to know the answer to this question.

“Oh, uh… well… it suppresses his fear of being in public,” I stumbled. “It’s a defense mechanism. He’s really quite shy. Acute agoraphobia, they tell me.”

The mask was a black leather job covered in glittering studs, with openings for the eyes and mouth. The mouth hole boasted a working zipper, through which Thunderstick had already rammed three corn dogs, four soft pretzels and a pair of Dee-Lux Polish sausages.

The cop cocked an eyebrow over the top of his Oakleys. He looked over at Thunderstick, who was—mercifully—subdued now, shoulders slumped like a scolded child.

“You sure you’ve got this under control?”

Thunderstick is 6-foot-8 and weighs about 260. “Absolutely. You can rely on me, sir.”

As soon as the fuzz and his teenage sidekick were out of sight, Thunderstick slapped me hard on the chest, grunted, and loped greedily in the direction of the concession stand. Within seconds, he was lost in the crowd again.

When I found him, he had a Foster’s oil can in each hand and was chanting “Rule, Britannia!” at the top of his lungs. He seemed to know only the chorus:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

And then this, to the tune of “The Battle Hymn Of The Republic”:

Glory, glory, Man United

Glory, glory, Man United

Glory, glory Man United

Your troops are marching on! On! On!

“This is America,” I reminded him. “These people don’t give a shit about soccer.” He unzipped the top of his black satin jumpsuit to reveal a t-shirt emblazoned with the pithy slogan, “I Fucking You.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ll get tossed out of here for that,” I said.

He peeled the shirt off and stuffed it down the front of his tights, leaving a misshapen bulge protruding obscenely from his crotchal region. He was shirtless now, the upper half of his satin bodysuit flapping behind him in the breeze. He was sunburned in that particularly brutal British way—angry, incandescent pink—his chest slick and sticky with misdirected lager. How had it come to this?

Simple, really: Thunderstick was hitchhiking on the westbound side of route 26 when in the spirit of Really, Really Good Samaritanism I offered him a ride to the carnival. I’d recognized him from the old album covers—Head On, NWOBHM ’79 Revisited—the custom bondage mask was a dead giveaway. But I was immediately sorry. After repeatedly cueing up and playing the first 30 seconds of Europe’s “Cherokee,” on my iPod, he finally froze the thing before breaking the volume knob off the stereo. He spent the rest of the trip grunting and fishing through my glove box for pills. In the parking lot he took a hot, sloppy dump in front of some old biddies and Rotarian types. Needless to say, they ran off shrieking.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Thunderstick spent the night in County after hurling himself down the Xtreme Rapidz waterslide completely naked. Except for the mask, of course. That stayed on. The police tell me he had a massive erection.

This bullshit originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of Decibel magazine.

Rainbows Over Tampa

In the Tampa of my dreams, Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness plays all day, every day at Alibi’s, and the lap dances are on the house. Instead of doing shitty coke off the back of the toilet with Thick Rick the men’s room attendant, I’m tag-teaming bitches in the VIP room with Erik Estrada.

In the Tampa of my dreams, I’m gunning down a butt in front of Morrisound when Glen Benton swings up on his Harley. He high-fives me and says, “Just canceled another European tour, brother. Can’t stand those fuckin’ pussies, am I right?” Then he asks me to record some guest vocals on the new Deicide album.

In the Tampa of my dreams, I’m cruising the Winn-Dixie parking lot in my cherry-ass arctic-white ’78 Firebird with the Van Halen logo airbrushed onto the hood. I’ve got the T-tops on because the air-conditioning actually works, which is more than I can say about the rusted-out Yugo Tempo in the Tampa of my reality.

In the Tampa of my dreams, Jeff Becerra walks again. In fact, dude walked here all the way from San Francisco just to kick some ass and take down the names. First fucker on his list? YOU.

In the Tampa of my dreams, I don’t have to sit around for two hours waiting for Julio to show up with my shit. I get higher than a hundred motherfuckers on the finest crystal this side of Ybor City but instead of jacking off to Internet porn for 10 hours straight, Gina Lynn comes over to my house and sucks my dick. For free.

In the Tampa of my dreams, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher bodyslams Chris Barnes onto the broiling hot pavement before chucking his twisted carcass off an overpass and into six lanes of oncoming traffic. Barnes is so high he doesn’t feel a fucking thing. An 18-wheeler full of McDonald’s swerves to avoid him and slams into the barricade. Free Big Macs for everyone.

In the Tampa of my dreams, the Hoffman brothers hand-fire muscle juice straight into their ballbags, take turns bench-pressing each other’s trucks and then rip the Empire State Building apart by hand.

In the Tampa of my dreams, the Empire State Building is in Tampa.

In the Tampa of my dreams, Obituary play Cause Of Death in its entirety at a keg party in my backyard. The dudes from Massacre are there with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who are all hanging out topless, and there’s an unlimited supply of High Life and Trevor Peres does a keg stand and Becky Griswold definitely isn’t invited because she ruined my life.

In the Tampa of my dreams, Julio forgets that I owe him that 80 bucks and then accidentally leaves an 8-ball at my house and then forgets that he did that, too.

In the Tampa of my dreams, I bring Chuck Schuldiner back to life and he dedicates the new Death album to me and takes me on world tour and then decides that he wants to focus on guitar stuff and asks me to take over as lead vocalist but I respectfully decline and say, “No, dude—Death wouldn’t be Death if you didn’t do the vocals. It would be something considerably less than Death, and that would be lame.”

In the Tampa of my dreams, I am a benevolent man.

This bullshit originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of Decibel magazine.

Not To Entertain, But To Annihilate

May 14, 2009: “Rock n’ roll collectibles” company Aggronautix announces plans to release a limited-edition GG Allin bobblehead doll. Two weeks later, one of the fuckers arrives at Decibel’s L.A. Bureau and starts talking to us. In English, no less. It doesn’t even have a pull string or anything like that. One night, we started talking back with the tape recorder running. A transcript follows:

… Yeah, we know, we know: Your body is the “rock n’ roll temple,” and your “flesh, blood and body fluids are a communion to the people, whether they like it or not.” We get it. Here’s the thing, though, guy: You’re a fucking bobble-head doll. Can you believe Merle signed off on this shit? Oh, wait—you died way before GGAllin.com became The Official Resource Of The King Of Rock-N-Roll, so the full scope of his vicarious profiteering remains the exclusive burden of the living. Then again, you always said you were the one and only Christ Almighty, so maybe cranking out a couple thousand false idols at $14.95 apiece makes total sense. The lightweight polyresin seems kinda bush league for someone who liked to smash himself in the face with a microphone every night, though. And eat his own poo.

“People in this lifetime are just not ready for me.” That’s what you told Joe Coughlin over the penitentiary blower from Jackson State back in ’93, and we couldn’t agree more. The fact that those same people might be ready to embrace you as an unspeaking, nonviolent, distinctly non-shit-smelling plastic figurine speaks volumes about the coddled state of the western world, don’t you think? Specifically, the infantilization of two generations of morbidly obese, video-gaming, toy-collecting, soda-chugging dimwits who insist on wearing sweatpants and flip-flops at every opportunity while blowing their paychecks on every chintzy piece of Taiwanese fucky-foam that can be molded into something they might recognize from the YouTube.

Apparently, Tesco Vee from the Meatmen is getting the same spring-loaded treatment, and he fucking loves it. Even called you his “poopy soulmate” whilst anointing the so-called “Throbbleheads”—his and yours—with a ringing Dutch Hercules endorsement. Talk about “Tooling For Anus.” But then again, there’s a link on his official website labeled “Got Old Toys?” so it’s not like we can feign surprise. And yet New Hampshire’s Greatest Soldier remains permanently unavailable for comment on the matter.

So where does that leave us, my naked, shit-covered, heroin-overdosed friend? No doubt you’re enjoying the unlimited golden showers and endless supply of hooker-piss mouthwash in some sort of skanky scum-punk Valhalla that may or may not resemble the Lower East Side, circa 1986-91. Probably laughing your scabby tits off at all this petty mercantile nonsense, too. Who’s sweating unauthorized likenesses while you and Hank Sr. are high-fiveing each other from either end of Wendy O. Williams, right? The joke’s on them—the squares, the cops, the easily misled—and it always will be. It’s not your fault that Middle America never understood that Geraldo Rivera is just PT Barnum with less charisma, fewer brains, and a fascist streak. You peed in the stream of commerce a long time ago, anyway. So fuck it, man. No use spinning in your grave all night when you might need to use it as a toilet later.

This bullshit originally appeared in the August 2009 issue of Decibel magazine.