So, not really a post, although I do want to write about some of these songs I have selected for this years GoM over at songfight.
My favorite metal song. Really takes you on a journey, and there is a lot to re-interpret in terms of atmosphere and structure.
Butthole Surfers - Pittsburgh to Lebanon:
My favorite band of all time. One of the most disgustingly slimy and unsettling deconstructions of the classic blues riff conceived by man. And Gibby's gleefully twisted vocals seal the deal.
Darkthrone - Skald Av Satans Sol
Not my favorite black metal band, but probably the easiest to re-interpret. The riff on this track is bombastic as fuck.
Townes van Zandt - Waitin' Round to Die:
Perhaps the definitive Townes track. Heartbreaking in every way.
Picked up Pig Destroyer's new album yesterday. This is the one that people will be recommending to you in 15 years, saying things like "Oh man, like every band out there now is just copying these guys." Total brutality, this surpasses not only everything else in Pig Destroyer's already solid catalogue, but most of what is going on in metal right now. It is essential listening. Here is a taste:
The most depressing literature on my shelves, even trumping The World According to Garp by John Irving. So many memories of people I knew were happy in a time in which I refused to be. And yet the most depressing part is that it was easier to be happy then than it is now.
Nick Cave
Seamus Heaney
TH White
Ennio Morricone
Dylan Carlson
Paul Selig
Louis Pasteur
Bryan Singer
Kurosawa
Jon Brion
Jasper Johns
Edvard Munch
Werner Herzog
Frank Zappa
David Lynch
Isaac Henley
Benjamin Inouye
Andrew Ryder
I am not on this (incomplete) list, and it wasn't until tonight that I realized I never would be.
I'm kind of dreading going back to school and have this terrible feeling that this semester will be as bad as the first one (pretty bad). But anyway. I found a mix CD from an old friend of mine and it's put me in this whole mood that really makes me hate nostalgia. It's a fucking great mix, too.
That said, TRAGEDIES. I stayed up till 6am watching Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein adaptation last night and I must read the book, because it's easily one of the best tragedies of all time.
Branagh is amazing, as an actor and director. This movie seemed to rush at first, but it became completely dizzying and just delirious and epic. And HORRIFIC. I had no idea just how deep and dark the story went. Frankenstein's monster isn't some superhuman vegetable like he's popularly portrayed now: he's a deep thinker, he is focused and eloquent. And he is about 500 kinds of tortured. That DeNiro could play this all so well as a giant limping corpse just blew me away. Anyway, I also obviously was unfamiliar with the original story of Frankenstein, which I deeply regret now. I'll borrow it from Wren I guess.
In addition! I finally got some clean recordings of Bedemon - side project of
members of Pentagram. This shit is incredible.
I've been trying to play guitar all day trying to convince myself I'm not completely shite. All because of Leo Kottke.
In addition to this, I watched a video of Leo doing "Vaseline Machine Gun," and under it someone had commented "He's no Malmsteen." What a fuck-ignorant thing to say. Allow me to retort on a similar wavelength: Bullshit Eurotrashy faggery played fast is still bullshit Eurotrashy faggery. Malmsteen isn't even respected by the metal crowd. Just the shred crowd, and nobody likes them. Anyway. Kottke is my guitar hero.
I was going to join the Church of Satan this weekend because I was bored and lonely and thought it would be like a tattoo but free and non-permanent. WELL I WAS HALF-RIGHT. They charge 200 bucks. And are kind of just nerdy and goofy. So that was dumb. Anyway, so I started a political party. The American Satan Party. Our mission? To actually elect Satan into office. Therefore, the picture below is kind of like our version of Elvis shaking hands with Nixon. Except who gives a fuck about these guys? But everyone gives a fuck about Elvis and Nixon.
Anyway, over at www.myspace.com/diplomacht things have been heating up. We have one comment now and two new pictures. So my update on my life is that I love metal, don't care for Satanism (it's just not evil enough), and I guess that's all there is to me. I'm gonna go listen to Sunn O))).
I'm in the middle of a post-war at the ohnotheydidnt community on livejournal though, so I gotta get back to that.
PEACE OUT MUH FUCKAS.
People have really shitty costumes this year. Everybody's either drunk slut or annoying Asian guy. Speaking of costumes, those must have been on sale, because they look cheeeeeeap.
I like Halloween though because I get to watch stuff about horror movies on tv and they're on sale usually at Virgin and stuff. I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 this morning and it's essentially the best movie I've ever seen. Dennis Hopper with a chainsaw = the bomb.
I saw two people today whose costumes do deserve mention. They were the Green Monkeys Team from Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Love,
Luke
