Flaming Pablum

Conflict Resolution Via Battle Axe

TITLE: "Horde of Undead Vengeance"
ARTIST: Lair of The Minotaur
ALBUM: War Metal Battle Master
TITLE: 2008

I unsuspectingly walked into Mondo Kim's on St. Marks Place with, frankly, a bit of a hangover. I was immediately greeted with a skull-cracking blast of implausibly weighty metal. While it certainly wasn't the first thing to which I needed to subject my bleary brain and addled ears, I gradually found myself nodding along like a Pavolovian hell hound in time with the stentorian wallop. Halfway into the second track, I was convinced that I needed to know who it was that I was hearing. The unshaven hipster behind the counter pointed at the particular CD on the new releases rack. The punishment in question was being rigorously doled out by a cheerless little combo by the name of Lair of the Minotaur, from an album called War Metal Battle Master. I was summarily intrigued.

My days of ardent metal fandom are largely behind me, but I still thrill to the pummeling strains of the old stuff. In the last couple of years, I've picked up albums by relatively new bands like Mastodon and The Sword, but still feel like a bit of a dilettante while doing so. At this stage of the proceedings, nothing bores me more than parsing the distinctions between Black Metal, Death Metal, Grindcore, Power Metal, Thrash, etc. Technically speaking, Lair of the Minotaur straddle these sub-genres, calling to mind a couple of favorite bands from my youth like Venom and Hellhammer (who later morphed into Celtic Frost). Were I tasked with describing their music to the layperson, I'd say that Lair of the Minotaur kick up a sumptuously ugly racket with a spinal-chord-worrying bottom end. Lyrically, they embrace juvenile subject matter (of a decidedly girl-worrying kind) with both arms and refuse to let go. They sound like a trio of deeply sexually-repressed Dungeons & Dragons players after hungrily wolfing down vast goblets of steroids. In short, they make heroically silly music.

Any doubts I was harboring about the band were immediately vanquished upon my reading of the promotional blurb on the album's label, printed in an impenetrably ornate, gothic font. Read aloud for maximum effect:

War Metal Battle Master is a concept album about solving conflicts with a big f*cking axe! A mix of thrashing aggression, mega-riffage and unrelenting beatings. Emotionless ferocity performed with the razor precision of an executioner.

I mean, really, what's not to like?

So with that, I give ye a pretty little ditty titled "Horde of Undead Vengeance." Put on your dancing pants and enjoy!

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Incidentally, the illustration at the top of this post comes from the album's booklet (accompanying the lyrics to another sternum-worrying track dubbed "Doomtrooper"). The artist in question is one Jeremy D. Mohler, and you can find out more about his work by clicking right here. I do hope he doesn't mind my usage of the image.

When Gnomes Attack!

I so love this story. The ending of the video is absolutely priceless.

Stranger Than Fiction

I didn't watch this live. I meant to, but it slipped my mind. In any event, here are the almighty Stooges covering Madonna at Monday night's Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame induction. If I understand the scenario correctly, Madonna pushed for the Stooges (her fellow Michiganauts) to perform her songs in protest of the Hall's continued snubbing of the band. I hope that's true, as it makes me respect Madonna a little bit more. For anyone else who missed it:

Sound Vs. Sound

My friend Keith spotted this article, "Training Your Brain to Ignore Tinnitus," in the Wall Street Journal and -- knowing well of my plight after listening to me whine about it for the last nine years -- thoughtfully cut it out and sent it to me. I found the online version and am sharing it with you now. Click here to read it.

In a nutshell, the article describes a new iPod-like device put out by a company called Neuromonics, Inc. that evidently conditions the brain to ignore the ring. Check it out.

Oliver Turns Two...

....Today. It seems like only yesterday that we could hold him in one hand.

Iran Maiden

TITLE: "Killers"
ARTIST: Iron Maiden
ALBUM: Killers
RELEASE DATE: 1981

Last night, Peggy had some of her publishing pals over to play a round of Mahh Jong (I think I'm spelling that right). That's what she told me, anyway. For all I could figure out from the paraphernalia they were spreading all over the dining room table, they may as well have all been furtive Freemasons divining the trajectory of the Illuminati. In any event, I seized the opportunity to escape the apartment and go check out a flick. I walked down to the Angelika and bought a ticket for a film I'd been wanting to see for a while, that being "Persepolis."

Peg and I had both read and thoroughly enjoyed the books. Written and illustrated by one Marjane Satrapi, "Persepolis" is ultimately an autobiographical comic book (or "graphic novel," as those who strive to legitimize the undeservedly maligned medium call them) about Satrapi's childhood and adolescence in Iran circa the fall of the Shah and the Revolution. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the simple, childlike nature of Satrapi's illustrations, it is a disarmingly moving, poignant story. When we heard that they were taking it to the big screen, we were both intrigued.

The film is beautiful, though still incredibly sad. In any event, while I don't vividly remember the incident in the book, there's a great episode wherein the youthful Marjane goes to a street in Tehran where black market goods from the West are being sold. She ends up buying an Iron Maiden cassette (while at the same time sporting a Michael Jackson badge on the lapel of her homemade "Punk's Not Ded" [sic] jacket -- an endearing display of genre-disregard), for which she narrowly escapes being turned into the authorities. Despite the close call, Marjane goes home, puts the tape in and rocks out furiously.

Unfortunately, the music they chose to represent Maiden with was a somewhat ludicrously cartoony approximation of the band's signature clamor. But I remember reacting identically when I first heard the band, although the risks I was running by swearing my allegiance to Iron Maiden were decidedly lesser than the ones facing poor little Marjane. No one was going to lock me up as a traitorous infidel for air-guitaring like a jackass. I was a freshman in high school, and my friend Duer (yes, his name was Duer) was given a copy of Maiden's second album, Killers, for a birthday present. As it happened, the dueling guitars and galloping tempos -- to say nothing of the splatteriffic lyrics and gurning grimace of undead Eddie on the album's sleeve -- weren't really my boy Duer's cup of tea. Knowing that I'd been a massive fan of the similarly inclined likes of Kiss and Black Sabbath, Duer quite correctly assumed that Killers would be right up my alley, so he gamely passed the platter on to me. Thrilled by its willfully unwieldy sound and sentiment, I took Killers home and slapped it on my turntable. The rest, as they say, is history.

Meanwhile, the whole time I was sitting in the Angelika watching this amazing film, some fidgety frat boy in the row in front of me (and why he was at this film and not, say, "Rush Hour 5" or "American Pie 9" is entirely beyond me) kept freakin' texting through the entirety of the movie. About half-way through, I could no longer take the distracting glow of his precious little gadget and I leaned forward to tell him to fuckin' cut it out, when what I really wanted to do was garrote him. I don't understand you texters, I really don't. Whatever happened to the respectful sanctity of the movie theatre?

In any case, in the spirit of that fleeting moment of bloodlust and in honor of brave little Marjane's fandom for that which rocks, herewith some vintage Maiden from the Killers album. Play it loud, strum your cuticles bloody on that tennis racquet and revel in your freedom to do so.

mog.com

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Mogstipation

Ahoy readers. Apologies for the molasses-esque slowdown in posting. I've actually composed two needlessly wordy and cohesion-free entries, but both of them are reliant on the inclusion of music. Mog.com, however, is simply not cooperating. It isn't allowing me to upload music with any degree of stealth and efficiency. As soon as that dilemma is rectified, I'll have more juicy bits of ultimately meaningless music-related blather for you to chew on.

In the interim, why not read about the art world via C-Monster or check out the wacky world of advertising on Copyranter or get all uppity and angry at the state of the world with Metal Dad or shake your fist at gentrification at Vanishing New York or get your L.E.S. on at Neither More Nor Less or misbehave vicariously with Hot Johnny.

But don't forget to come on back now y'hear?

The Triple Lindy

This one's a bit tough to explain, so I'm not going to try. I found this on the weblog of the endearingly strange Jon W. Instructions are simple. Turn the volume control down on the YouTube box above (but not the volume on your computer). Then click on the link below. I can't begin to tell you what it means, what it's supposed to mean or how you're supposed to react, but I found it strangely compelling.

NOW CLICK HERE.

Farewell, Dungeon Master

I just learned that Gary Gygax, the architect of an arguable waste of time I spent a slavish amount of my pre-adolescence involved with, just passed away.

I actually got to meet the great man when my father pitched a story to Forbes Magazine about the budding phenomenon in 1979. I was twelve years old and thoroughly geeked out. We flew to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (headquarters of Gygax's TSR Games), and I got to schmooze with Gygax, Brian Blume and the stable of in-house artists like Jeff Dee and Erol Otus. You have no idea how huge this was for me at the time. I still have my autographed copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide. I shall never part with it.

In any case, let the Gelatinous Cubes pause in their tireless slithering. Let the Orcs bow their tusks. Let the Purple Worms mope in their slime-caked lairs. May the twenty-sided dice be still. Pour thyself a dragon-festooned hogshead of mead and pour one out for the late, great Dungeon Master.

ADDENDUM: Our local NPR affiliate, WNYC, just did a nice piece on Gygax for All Things Considered. You can hear it by clicking right here.

The Crying Tiles

There doesn't seem to be a way of invoking the topic of September 11, 2001 without it appearing as if one is striving to make some sort of point, statement, slight or commentary on the so-called "War on Terror." Even this many years after the fact, the topic is still punted around like a political football, invariably used as a scare tactic or patriotism litmus test. Suffice to say, it's still a sensitive subject that can raise significant ire. Despite my unwavering stance as a liberal lefty, I assert that this post is merely an observation and nothing more. I also apologize if it reads a little histrionic. I'm just in that sort of mood.

There's a sharp, triangular-shaped chain-link fence here in Manhattan where the North end of Greenwich Avenue intersects with 7th Avenue and 11th Street, just across the way from St. Vincent's Hospital. In the immediate wake of the events of September 11, 2001, St. Vincent's was the primary recipient of patients rushed from the site of World Trade Center. In the hours and days that followed, the seeming entirety of lower Manhattan was covered in flyers crying out for information on missing loved ones. Virtually the entire Southern side of St. Vincent's on 11th Street was covered with these flyers (as was the facade of Ray's Pizza just up the block to the East). As we all doubtlessly remember, exceptionally few of the individuals pictured on those countless flyers were recovered alive. It is still a painful, incalculably surreal chapter in this city's history that, by this point, has been well documented. I don't need to try to do so here. Despite the myriad, flaccid dramatizations and documentaries on the subject, I'd suggest that the events of that fateful day and its accompanying fallout are still very fresh in the minds of anyone who was living here at the time.

In any case, back to the chain-link fence. The last shop on the West side of that stretch of Greenwich Avenue was a do-it-yourself pottery design place called Our Name Is Mud. I once painted a caricature of Peggy and myself on a large, ceramic bowl there as a birthday present that we now use as "the mail bowl." Shortly after September 11th, Our Name Is Mud had a bunch of people -- presumably mostly children -- design a huge selection of memorial tiles. These tiles were then hung all over the chain link fence, facing both Greenwich and 7th Avenues, creating a colorful mosaic. Images on the individual tiles ranged from American flags, bald eagles, Uncle Sams, hearts and peace signs to frowny faces and the very occasional invocation of revenge. One could spend a couple of hours looking at each tile on the de facto memorial. It was a heartening, virtually spontaneous expression of art and human emotion in the wake of such an unimaginable event, and I think everyone in the community took a little something from it.

Almost seven years later, it's a strange, lonely scene. The Southern-facing wall of St. Vincent's --- which had been re-christened as a "Wall of Hope And Remembrance" -- is now back to being a bare brick facade. For some reason, the missing person flyers that had been on display were all taken down. Our Name Is Mud, meanwhile, vacated the shop some years ago (although the space looks primed to re-open as something called "Canine Styles"). The tiles, meanwhile, are all still there. Some have cracked. Most have faded. Some have fallen off. Some are missing entirely. With the shop gone, no one seems to be looking after them. They appear to be a largely forgotten after-thought in a state of gradual atrophy. I was walking down that way on a stormy night a few weeks back and the whipping wind caused the tiles to rattle and clink against their fence in an aptly ghostly fashion.

A lot has transpired in New York City since 2001, and not all of it has been positive. The strangely comforting, collective empathy its approximately 8,000,000 citizens felt in the months immediately after the attacks has subsided, but so too has much of the original spirit and character of the city. Perhaps it's true that you can't go home again after an experience like that. I'm not sure what the character of Manhattan is anymore, but it's barely recognizable. For me, those lonely ceramic tiles not only serve to commemorate the fallen on September 11th, they also serve as a shrine to the New York City that used to be. And given the current nature of this place, I wouldn't be surprised if I walked down Greenwich Avenue some day soon to find them all gone, replaced by a sign announcing the arrival of a new South Fork bank.

Go check them out while you still can.