BLOWS HARD

 IQ Subtraction, Off Topic  18 Responses »
Oct 052010
 

[EDITOR’S PREFACE: We don’t usually publish band press releases on this site. We leave that kind of thing to Blabbermouth. But today we’re making an exception. We’ll explain why at the end of the release.]

Legendary thrash-polka-disco masters Blows Hard have reunited after a 15-year absence from the scene, to the delight of their legions of die-hard fans.

Originally formed in 1991, Blows Hard revolutionized the thrash-metal genre with their pioneering use of the accordion, castanets, old-school polka rhythms, and disco beats. The underground scene in Kenosha, Wisconsin was never the same again.

After honing their craft through four long years of tireless practice, in which the band members taught themselves to play all the instruments, except for the disco backing tracks, Blows Hard self-released their ground-breaking debut album, Corpse Insemination.

Since the original release of that acclaimed 1995 debut, all the band members have successfully pursued accomplished careers in the automotive repair, septic-tank pumping, yard maintenance, flea-market, and prison craft industries.

The group, whose line-up once again includes all five original members, including currently imprisoned bassist Cyrus “Cretin Bob” Menzes, plans to begin recording new material in the near future.

Not all the band’s original members chased their dreams exclusively outside the music industry after the release of Corpse Insemination. Robert “Connie” Slickshute, one of the world’s finest and most renowned transgendered vocalists, first released a solo record (as a Blows Hard side project) under the stage name “Butch Hardcock” entitled Assless Pants in 1993 and then another solo record as “Queen Freedom” titled Strapless Gowns in 1996.

Commented Blows Hard guitarist/castanetist “B.O. Bob” Shrake, “We’re stoked to see what we can do now as a sort-of-female-fronted band. As a result of the medical procedures, Queen can really hit the high notes, but she can still hit those gravelly lows as only a woman who was born as a man can do. It should be fucking rad.”  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FAVORITE WORDS

 Off Topic  9 Responses »
Sep 282010
 

 

The video above has nothing to do with metal. It’s simply a gentleman from Brooklyn expressing his feelings about our hometown icon here in Seattle (that would be Starbuck’s).  But if you’ve spent any time at all visiting NCS, you’ll understand why I’m putting it up here today. It made my Starbuck’s coffee come out my nose in a hot torrent.

Enjoy the rest of your fucking day.

NIGERIAN RICHES AWAIT!

 IQ Subtraction, Off Topic  12 Responses »
Sep 272010
 

When my comrades and I started this site last November, I set up an e-mail address to use for NCS-related stuff. It took about 6 months for the spam to start polluting my new in-box. I guess it’s remarkable that it took so long, but it’s now happening. Recently, I got a string of three e-mails in almost as many days that were so choice, both individually and in combination, that I just couldn’t resist answering them.

And now I can’t resist sharing the exchanges. This isn’t metal, but maybe you’ll find it amusing anyway, and we do have some musical accompaniment selected for the occasion. So, without further ado, here are those three messages I received, and my responses:

FIRST MESSAGE

From: Mrs. Bintu Mahmud <Bintumahmud@ymail.com>
Subject: **Assalamualaikum…..
Date: September 15, 2010 12:34:51 AM PDT

Assalamualaikum I am Mrs. Bintu Mahmud. Please contact my lawyer Ramli Sariman (ramlisariman@gala.net) for a very important thing ALLAH wants you to do for Him. May ALLAH be with you always.

REPLY:

Dear Mrs. Mahmud, thank you for your interest in NO CLEAN SINGING and for your warm personal salutation, which I understand is a phonetic rendering of the Arabic greeting, “Peace be upon you”. I am all in favor of peace being upon me, and I’m sure the more people who say that to me, the more likely it will be to happen, especially when it comes from someone so obviously sincere and kind-hearted as you are, and with a direct channel to ALLAH.

We would be happy to listen to the new music, which I’m sure is fucking sick, and yes, we would be fucking stoked to write about the songs here at NCS, especially because it appears that ALLAH wants me to do that for Him.

Is this actually ALLAH’s music?  Because, y’know, if it is, I am really fucking stoked that He would pick our humble site out of all the metal blogs in metal blogdom to hear His latest sick tunes. Is it deathcore?   (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BANJO METAL

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  27 Responses »
Sep 212010
 

A few days ago we published a post about a Chicago band called Demolisher that unexpectedly led to a wide-ranging discussion in the comments that was far more thoughtful and interesting than the post itself. As often seems to happen at this site, the discussion in the comments veered off in directions that couldn’t have been predicted from the subject of the post. We started off talking about breakdowns and bass drops, and by the end we were talking about banjo music — specifically, metal songs that include the banjo.

One reader (byrd36) referred to the banjo intro in a song by Virginia’s King Giant, which is the subject of a brand new video that we included in one of our MISCELLANY posts two days later. Another reader (Andy Synn) thought of a second metal band that had included the banjo in one of its songs.

That was about all it took to send our impulsive selves off in search of more banjo-infused metal, and today we’re sharing the results of our search. Even though my posts usually tend to run on and on (since “wordy” is one of my middle names), this post will require even more of your time than usual, because we’re including five songs. But we hope you’ll hang with us, because there’s some good shit in here, and it just reaffirms what a few of us thought in that earlier comment discussion: Metal needs more banjo!

After the jump, we’ll repeat that King Giant video (cuz that’s where this all started) and follow it with music from The Absence, an early Zakk Wylde project called Pride and Glory, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

Okay, we cheated there at the end — Béla Fleck’s music isn’t metal, but do keep an open mind, because the music is still stunning. In fact, it may be the most interesting and instrumentally impressive of all the songs we’re featuring today. Continue reading »

A SAPPY THANK-YOU, AND NAIL CLIPPINGS

 Band Name Fodder, Off Topic  7 Responses »
Sep 152010
 

This is the second post of the day, which we don’t do very often. As the title says, this is mainly a sappy thank-you post.  Of course it is, because “sappy” is my middle name. Well, it comes right after my other middle names, i.e., “wordy” and “half-assed.”

For many months after we started this blog, no one posted any comments on what we wrote.  Okay, to be honest, for many months no one read what we wrote.  But even after the reading started, our words were greeted by silence.  Figuratively, the sound of crickets.

Not all bad, because I’ve missed the sound of crickets ever since moving to Seattle from Texas years ago. I don’t miss the appearance of crickets, just the sound of them, on warm nights, when you can’t see them. Kind of a dreamy, hypnotic sound. The sound of nature around us, undisturbed.

Where was I?  Oh yeah: No one posted any comments at NCS for a long time.  But now that has changed, and it’s been an exhilarating change for us.  We look forward every day to seeing what readers write, even when someone calls us retarded, and we feel kinda empty on the days when none come.  That’s mainly because the comments are usually better than the posts we write.

Yesterday was a classic example, certainly one of the best comment days ever.  We did a half-baked riff on band names and got a slew of comments that were smart and funny and creative and educational and took the discussion off in unexpected directions, which is part of what’s so much fun about the comments we’re getting.

And did I say the comments are educational?  They’re really educational!  Of course, when, like us, you start in a state of embarrassing ignorance, it may not take much to be educational in our eyes, but still. After the jump, I’ll tell you the things I learned yesterday, and one thing in particular that drew me back to an album I haven’t listened to in a while, and it was just a perfect end to a beautiful Indian summer day in Seattle.

But first: Thank you to the people who commented yesterday — to Dan, and ElvisShotJFK, and Brian, and Andy, and byrd36 — and to everyone else who has taken the time to add something to this site since we started.  And we don’t mean to slight those who simply read and don’t write (which is mainly what I do on other sites).  We are sappily grateful to all of you, too. But if you usually don’t write and are are tempted to write something someday, don’t worry — we won’t bite! (more sappiness, plus some music, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NAME-THE-BURGER CONTEST: WE HAVE A WINNER!

 Off Topic  3 Responses »
Sep 122010
 

A little more than a week ago, we joined forces with the Netherlands-based metal blog Death Metal Baboon (DMB) to sponsor a contest. We invited our readers to submit their most inspired names for a gut-busting burger concocted by DMB’s Niek that those of us here at NCS had the pleasure of reproducing in all its glory for our own delectation. (The story of how that happened and how the contest came into existence can be found here.)

DMB and NCS agreed to contribute the following CDs as a prize for the winner:

Kataklysm – Heaven’s Venom

Neurosis – Enemy of the Sun (2010 reissue)

Ion Dissonance – Cursed

Decrepit Birth – Polarity

Demonic Ressurection – The Return to Darkness

Red Descending – Where Dreams Come to Die

Chronic Xorn – Death Destruction Sermon

Symbol of Obscurity – n.N.i.M.m.

The Way of Purity – Crosscore

We got some outstanding name suggestions from NCS and DMB readers, and selecting the winner wasn’t easy. But we do have a winner, and his name is Dan. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NAME THAT BURGER!

 Off Topic  16 Responses »
Sep 012010
 

International cooperation is a great thing, particularly when it involves coma-inducing food.

Last weekend, I got into a discussion on this site with Niek, the lead perpetrator of Death Metal Baboon – he’s all the way over in The Netherlands – about burgers (a subject near and dear to his heart). A post we put up at NCS featuring Goatwhore got Niek all steamed up for the stuff and in the comments on that post, he shared a recipe for richly topped burgers, including pineapple, bacon, Gouda cheese, and cheese-onion buns.

Niek went on to create the stuff, and he put up links to burger photos in his NCS comments. Well, that pushed me over the edge — those babies looked so fucking good that I had to follow suit.  I hunted down almost all the required ingredients, including the Grolsch beer that Niek included in his burger photographs, and I and 3 other ravenous gluttons made those burgers and wolfed them down for dinner. (I wrote about the whole experience here.) So far so good (and man, those burgers were awesomely good).

But then, the food coma hit with a vengeance, and it sounds like Niek got overwhelmed by one, too. Metal food is — well, it’s metal! But it’s tasty. So, Niek and I thought about naming the thick bastards — a name that ideally pays tribute both to the burger’s heaviness and its tastfulness. But we had a better idea. Niek and I decided we would let you do it!   (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

LORISES

 Off Topic  11 Responses »
Aug 092010
 

One of my largely behind-the-scenes collaborators on this site (Alexis) saw my totally random use of a loris photo in a recent post and sent me the video up above. I just about busted a gut laughing at it. It’s got nothing to do with metal, and I promise I’m not going to make a habit of showing cute animal videos on this site. Just this one time. Just couldn’t resist.

I still don’t think I’d want a pet that has hands. That would make me nervous. On the other hand, I think I’d prefer the kind of tricks this loris can do to my cat’s favorite trick — which is to jump on my keyboard while I’m in the middle of writing and delete everything.

This video has 3,117,938 hits on YouTube, which is about 3,117,900 more hits than we have on this NCS site.  Fucking lorises. I wonder if a video of someone scratching my pits would increase our traffic. I could make my eyes really wide while being scratched. What do you think?

I did find one related video on the YouTube sidebar after I watched this one. It’s the same loris, but at feeding time. This one is somewhat more metal. You can see what I mean — after the jump . . . (UPDATE: now with suitable musical accompaniment) Continue reading »

LESSONS?

 Off Topic  14 Responses »
Aug 052010
 

I’m older than the average metal blogger. Increasing age brings pluses and minuses. The chief advantage — and sometimes it feels like the only plus — is that it’s better than the fucking alternative. One of the disadvantages is that as the years roll on, you endure more deaths.

Time passes, and people die. People in your family die. Close friends die. People you don’t know but admire from afar, they die, too. Sometimes you see it coming and you can prepare. Sometimes it just knocks you down like all the air has been violently sucked from your lungs.

All deaths of people you know or people you wish you had known are painful. The most painful are the unexpected deaths, particularly when they happen in completely random, apparently meaningless ways, to people who have a lot of life left to live. Like the death of Makh Daniels, the vocalist of Early Graves.

I’ve already written more about this sad event than I probably should have, but I have  few more things to get off my chest, and then I’m done.  Promise. It has to do with whether we can take away any useful lessons from his death — or from the death of anyone.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

PIG DESTROYER, FOR THE FOURTH

 Off Topic  6 Responses »
Jul 022010
 

Those of us who live here in the U.S. of A. have a long 4th of July weekend ahead of us. Lots of flag-waving hoo-ha, beer-drenched barbeques, illegal fireworks, and general ignorance about the ridiculously insane, life-imperiling act that the holiday commemorates.

The self-satisfied flag-waving is something you can do when you come out on top, but I’d rather think back about what it must have been like on the original date in 1776 when all those dudes in the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence — and brought an immediate British death sentence on their heads for their revolutionary act of defiance.

Those dudes were pretty much the opposite of patriotic. They were basically yelling a full-throated “Fuck You!” across the Atlantic to the nation under whose flag they had lived and prospered, with no real plan about how to back it up when the British military machine would inevitably show up to squash them like annoying roaches.

To help get in that 1776 mood, which is kind of the opposite of patriotism, I’m gonna listen to some Pig Destroyer. Just in case you feel like a little fire-breathing metal for the Fourth, we’ve got four PD videos for you after the jump. We wish we could see your faces when you get to the fourth one. Continue reading »

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