When Mean Deviation was just the germ of an idea, when there was only a “non-fiction book proposal” and maybe three pages of notes to show for it, I had lots of ideas for the book that ultimately never came to fruition. Like:

• A sidebar rant called “Why Symphony X isn’t progressive,” but that didn’t quite happen the way I originally envisioned (well, it kinda sorta did—it evolved into Chapter 13. Deviation or Derivation?).

• A page of ‘70s-era prog rock album cover art images that could easily have graced later metal albums, drawing yet another parallel between early prog and modern metal. Covers from Omega (The Hall of Floaters in the Sky), Gnidrolog (Lady Lake), Neuschwanstein (Battlement), and others were to be featured, but it didn’t happen. Maybe a future blog?

Doomsword or Primordial would have killed for this album cover, no?

• Features on metal artists and fans who were steadfastly “anti-progressive,” giving voice to those averse to mixing prog rock’s peanut butter with metal’s chocolate. I wanted to talk to the most militant metal purists. I thought of Tom Angelripper from Sodom, and of Don of the Dead from the long-running NunSlaughter. I did talk to Don for the book, but the whole idea just didn’t fit in the book after all. Our interview begins after the jump…

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“Alright, this is another fast one… but aren’t they all?”
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The printer proofs of the limited Murder in the Front Row dustjackets arrived today. These measure x 27.5″ wide x 11.5″ high, and will be wrapped around copies of the book shipped directly from Bazillion Points. Each side features a photo by one of the book’s authors, Harald Oimoen and Brian Lew, with Harald’s classic Metallica yard FxUx pic facing outward (he had just told them he needed to split to go see Megadeth, true!). Brian Lew’s side offers some Exodus blood-upon-the-stage action, starring one murderous fan lower left with the infamous call to arms written in gaffer tape on the back of his denim: KILL!

This book is amazing collection of inspired moments from probably the most energized local scene heavy metal has ever known. More to come!

Click the photo above to enlarge. And join the Facebook page for regular commentary by Misters Oimoen and Lew…

Main site:

MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW

Here’s a plumb pulled from the written portion of Murder in the Front Row:

In upcoming SF thrash metal photo book MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW: Shots From the Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter, by Harald Oimoen and Brian Lew, guitarist Gary Holt of Exodus (and currently Slayer) claims that the bruising scenes seen nightly at metal shows everywhere first came to thrash metal from punk at Ruthie’s Inn in Berkeley, CA.

“From our first show together with Slayer,” Holt writes, “to all the shows with everyone from Death Angel, Possessed, Violence, Legacy, and many others, Ruthie’s Inn lives in infamy because it’s the one and only birthplace of violence becoming part and parcel to an Exodus show. I had never seen a stage dive, a pit, or anything coming close to resembling that before Ruthie’s. It was born there, with the help of Wes Robinson and the Exodus Slay Team, and anyone who says different doesn’t know what they’re talking about or they’re lying to you. While the rest of the metal world would later come around and learn the joys of a little good friendly violent fun, it all started there at Ruthie’s, end of story.”

Holt’s full essay joins over 400 color and black and white live, candid, and studio photos in the large-format hardcover MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW book, an untouchable eyewitness viewpoint into the sometimes violent mid-1980s San Francisco metal scene that launched Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Death Angel, and Possessed, and first supported Megadeth and Slayer. The book will be available December 2011 wherever books are sold, including directly from Bazillion Points with a limited two-sided exclusive poster-size dustjacket.

See this location for page samples and preorder info: http://www.murderinthefrontrow.com

Our charged-up friends at ACDCcollector.com have uploaded a brief preview of Bazillion Points’ forthcoming DIRTY DEEDS: My Life Inside/Outside of AC/DC, by former AC/DC bass player Mark Evans. The short PDF includes a scene which is set in the lovely city of Paris, costarring Bon Scott, and it can be downloaded here [click the teeny "AC/DC News" link on the left].

DIRTY DEEDS is the first insider account of the classic Bon Scott years of AC/DC, a gripping, laugh-out-loud tale of a band that lived fast and played harder than anyone else. For more info about the book and to pre-order (with bonus metal badge), visit the main Bazillion Points page.

Daniel Ekeroth’s beloved Swedish Death Metal book has had some rabid supporters over the years, but voracious reader Alex Sooz from Spain is walking the extra mile with Nicke Andersson’s iconic cover illustration tattooed into her flesh. Needles over several sessions by Jaime Bosch at Inkfierno in Mallorca, Spain.

Bazillion Points Books, the Swedish Film Institute, and author Daniel Ekeroth (Swedish Death Metal, Swedish Sensationsfilms) got the ball rolling for the first-ever uncut screening in Stockholm of director Boarne Vibenius’ 1973 touchstone exploitation classic Thriller: A Cruel Picture. The uncut film print hasn’t been seen elsewhere since the Cannes Film Festival in 1973.

The film’s star Christina Lindberg (Exposed, Maid in Sweden) participated in a Q&A afterwards, and then she gamely stood between Daniel Ekeroth (left) and the book’s translator, Magnus Henriksson (right).

As outlined in Ekeroth’s book Swedish Sensationsfilms, Thriller was a groundbreaking European grindhouse film in the early 1970s which rose to notoriety in the 2000s as the primary inspiration for American director Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill series. “I love Christina Lindberg,” Tarantino said in 2003. “And that’s definitely who Daryl Hannah’s character is based on. In the next movie, she’s wearing mostly black. Just like Thriller…  And that is, of all the revenge movies I’ve ever seen, that is definitely the roughest. The roughest revenge movie ever made! There’s never been anything as tough as that movie.”

Daniel Ekeroth will present three other sensationsfilms at the Swedish Film Institute this fall, including Around the World With Fanny Hill and The Language of Love—the infamous Swedish film Robert DeNiro takes Cybill Shepherd to see on their ill-fated date in Taxi Driver.

UPDATE: In the life imitates art department, one elderly couple on a date was spotted at the subsequent Language of Love screening. Bickle lives!

TOUCH AND GO: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-’83 co-author Tesco Vee returns to the Motor City August 27:th and along comes this absolutely stellar poster. The incomparable Vee will once again take the stage on St Andrews Hall with his The Meatmen and treat the audience to a potent witches’ brew of punk, metal, flamenco, wardrobe changes and a 130-pound air compressor gun. Great fun for anyone lucky enough to live in Michigan.

Meanwhile, TOUCH AND GO: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-’83, by Vee and Dave Stimson, is available from Bazillion Points Books, and ships today w/ bonus badge and more!

http://www.touchandgobook.com

Christina Lindberg, the cover girl and foreword writer of Bazillion Point’s Swedish Sensationsfilms, will be one of the celebrity guests at Flashback Weekend in Chicago, August 12-14. The cult actress, Quentin Tarantino favorite and all-around great gal will do the usual signing and chatting, and Synapse Films—who have released a number of her movies in the US—will have the book for sale. Here’s your chance to meet a legend!

Click image to enlarge.

Here’s an image that—when viewed at full size—will consume all oxygen in any size space, leaving a dangerous sulfurous near-vacuum and causing dizziness in all but the most steeled of hearts. Like the headline sez: Every single issue of the legendary Slayer Mag, plus all six copies of Jon Kristiansen’s immense work METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries known to exist as of today…

Ker–plopp!

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