New arrival today at Bazillion Points HQ, as the printer sent us the first dripping wet samples of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-’83. If anything, they did too good a job hiding the 576-page girth of this beast in a deceptive one-and-a-quarter inch thickness, but you can feel the heft in your wrist when you shake the thing. Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson and editor Steve Miller’s book is an incredible eye-level archive of the first sprouts and eventual blossoming of hardcore punk in America. I mean, where were you in ’79, when the dam began to burst?

TV and DS were in Lansing fucking Michigan, listening to X and 999 and waiting for Reagan to take office. Already major music fiends, they got the punk bug, and inspired by Slash they huddled around the Xerox machine with glue and scissors and got to work. Their Touch and Go fanzine was a tiny crowbar that opened up a crack in the universe for anything weird and now revered, and the on-the-spot and on-the-mark reviews of crucial records by the Fall, Crisis, Pagans, Crass, Discharge, U2, the Cure, and hundreds of others (including Venom, Accept, Acid, and Blitzkrieg, hells yeah!) are alone worth the price of admission, just to make sure you aren’t suckered by nostalgia or a case of historical revisionism by someone who wasn’t there.

But the meat of matter is of course the acidic essays and wise-ass interviews with usually unknown up-and-comers like the Effigies, Necros, Void, Crucifix, Minor Threat, SSD, Negative Approach, Misfits, Youth Brigade, Iron Cross, Scream, the Minutemen, Battalion of Saints, Bad Religion, 7 Seconds, and countless others.

While sure to improve the profiles of essential U.S. hardcore bands the Fix, Necros, Meatmen, Negative Approach, and honorary Midwest bands (read non-LA or NYC) like Misfits or Minor Threat, the bleak Midwestern humor shines through:

TV: One glance at your lyrics, and it’s apparent that you aren’t much on booze and drugs.
IAN MACKAYE: I’m totally anti-drug and alcohol.
TV: In Lansing drinking is somewhat of a necessity.

The ever-gentle and considerate MacKaye goes on to describe hitting a kid with a hammer who blew pot smoke in his face, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover on your own. There will never be another book like this about hardcore, because these guys were ground correspondents and active participants during the incubation and invasion period. They not only wrote the zine, they booked the shows, they started the bands, and eventually they launched Touch and Go Records, a cornerstone of indie record labels to this day.

Go ahead and start a riot in your eyes with the fresh photos posted at the book site:

TOUCHANDGOBOOK.COM

Just don’t let your impressionable children take the book to show and tell—there are lots of wobbly penises, Xeroxed vaginas, and curly brown shapes in between all the bald heads and white T-shirts. Who else but Tesco Vee would put tit torture pics into a zine dedicated to 999??

I think about closing the door, and lately I think of it more…

Help me, tell me I’m sane, I feel a change in the earth and the wind and the rain…

Think you’re safe but you’re wrong, falling off the edge of the world.

Ronnie James Dio, rest in peace.

Thanks to Classic Rock magazine [UK] for setting the record straight on the Hanoi Rocks score in their recent review of guitarist Andy McCoy’s autobiography Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks.

Guns N’ Roses would have sounded like a turgid metal band without them. Garish glam styling would have stayed lost in the 70s. And nobody would have been able to point out Finland on a map. Highly influential but criminally underrated, Hanoi Rocks updated early-70s glitter-rock for the flash-rock generation and influenced countless bands along the way…

Are you listening, Mötley Crüe? Poison? Faster Pussycat? Championed ceaselessly by Kerrang! back in the yesteryears of metal, Hanoi Rocks were a band extreme enough in image and quality to capture the loyalty of even the fiercest metalheads. Matt Olivo and Scott Carlson of Repulsion are fans. Fenriz of Darkthrone has a Hanoi Rocks tattoo. For me as a metal-crazed teenager, Hanoi Rocks were a window into a thousand rock bands through their incessant magpie swipes of song particles belonging to the Stooges, the Stones, the Clash, Bowie, Ramones, MC5, and the New York Dolls.

So if Sheriff McCoy seems strange to you sitting on the Bazillion Points bookshelf alongside Swedish Death Metal and Only Death Is Real, it shouldn’t. Andy McCoy, Mike Monroe, Nasty Suicide, Sam Yaffa, and Razzle invented a new kind of high-energy music. They were absolute outsiders who became radical originators, and Andy McCoy remains an unpredictable spectacle, a phenomenal guitarist, and a dispatcher of great rock war stories that all the surviving witnesses swear are true.

UPDATE [03-10-10]: And Amp joins the chorus with a nice lengthy review that ends: “Sheriff McCoy is a frank, but upbeat experience, and should be required reading for all those who believe in the transformative thunder of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Feature-length documentary chronicles the “ancient samplers,” the Chamberlin and the Mellotron keyboards, featuring members of the Moody Blues, the Beach Boys, Genesis, King Crimson, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, the Zombies, Latin Playboys, Yes, Maroon 5, Opeth, and many more.

Standing room only screening at NAMM drew rave reviews and a sold-out crowd including members of Bigelf, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Brian Kehew (Recording the Beatles), Darian Sahanaja (Brian Wilson producer/bandleader), electronic music legend Larry Fast (Synergy), Pea Hicks of Optiganally Yours, Markus Resch of Mellotron Archives, and Michelle Moog of the Bob Moog Foundation.

Bazillion Points Publishing happily announces today’s long-awaited DVD release of the acclaimed and unusual music documentary, Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie, by Dianna Dilworth, 2010 in NTSC Region 0 format packed with bonus features in a deluxe Digipak. Color insert booklet features essay by Mike Pinder (The Moody Blues) and Chamberlin / Mellotron production timelines.

“While everybody knows the sound of the instruments, most people have never heard of the Mellotron or the Chamberlin,” says director Dianna Dilworth. “I hope Mellodrama will change that.”

Mellodrama explores the five-decades-long rise and fall of the Chamberlin and its better-known successor the Mellotron—the first musical keyboards to play the prerecorded sounds of other instruments. Essentially the first sampler, its haunting sound has changed the production and texture of popular music, from the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” to Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

featuring members from: The Beach Boys • The Moody Blues • The Zombies • King Crimson • Yes • Cheap Trick • Black Sabbath • Genesis • Refugee • Opeth • Latin Playboys • Goblin • Maroon 5 • Moog Cookbook • Änglagård • Optiganally Yours • Bigelf
plus: Fabio Frizzi • Jon Brion • Michael Penn • Matthew Sweet • Woody Jackson • Zac Rae • Patrick Warren

During 2009, Mellodrama screened at over a dozen international festivals, including the CMJ Film Festival in New York, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Portobello Film Festival in London, Atlantic Film Festival in Canada, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Tucson Film and Music Festival, and, at the invitation of Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))), the Lausanne Underground Film Festival.

For more information, to view trailer, and see DVD details, visit:

http://www.mellodramadvd.com

Thank you! Any questions?

Above: Hellhammer, Birchwil, Switzerland, January 1, 1983. (Andreas Schwarber)

“Only Death Is Real” HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST Book Available for Pre-order

Bazillion Points Books is very proud to announce that pre-orders will be accepted beginning January 1, 2010 for the massive hardcover book Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost, by Tom Gabriel Fischer with Martin Eric Ain. These books will ship worldwide in March 2010. For more information and to place orders, visit Bazillion Points Books.

This formidable oversized hardcover runs 288 pages (including a 32-page color section), and combines hundreds of unseen early Hellhammer and Celtic Frost photos with a vast treasure trove of artwork and memorabilia. A substantial written component by Fischer details his upbringing on the outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland, and the hardships and triumphs he faced bringing his groundbreaking bands Hellhammer and eventually Celtic Frost to reality. In addition, the book includes an introduction by Nocturno Culto of Norwegian black metal act Darkthrone, and a foreword by noted British author Joel McIver.

Significantly, the pre-order date of January 1 marks the anniversary of the first Hellhammer photo session in 1983, and also kicks off a new year which will bring the debut release by Fischer’s new band Triptykon, along with his much-anticipated featured role as guest curator at Holland’s respected Roadburn Festival.

According to Fischer: “The earliest existing photos of Hellhammer were taken exactly 27 years ago, on January 1, 1983. At that date, I found myself at the dawn of a new period in my life, much as I do today. On that first day of 1983, we in Hellhammer conducted the first proper photo session as a band, at the tiny farm village of Birchwil, Switzerland. The year that had just begun would also see the recording sessions and release of Hellhammer’s three demo cassettes, possibly the most important and enduring aspect of Hellhammer’s legacy.”

“Now, on this first day of 2010, I am yet again embarking on a new stage of the path that is my life. I am once more part of a new group, Triptykon, and this year will see the release of our first album, Eparistera Daimones. It is coincidental, but no less significant, that this release will be preceded by the publication of Only Death Is Real, the book chronicling the very beginning of this path.”

Says Bazillion Points publisher Ian Christe: “There is no question that this book goes farther than any other source in exploring the origins of underground heavy metal. The wealth of visual information is astounding, both in terms of documenting early 1980s headbangers and exposing the still-relevant imagery of the first Hellhammer and Celtic Frost photo sessions over 20 years ago. On top of that, the written chapters combine Tom Fischer’s vivid stories with lengthy quotes from Martin Eric Ain and the other main Hellhammer members, all explaining in highly personal terms how and why extreme metal was born. I could not be prouder to play a role in making this remarkable book a reality.”

States Fischer: “This is a book about the real Hellhammer, the essence of that group, the aura it carried, and the truly unique spirit of revolution of the times in which it existed. It is a book about a group of outcasts—about persistence, dedication, and an utterly personal vision. I have worked very hard to make sure it will do justice to the work of a number of very unique people who shared the same ideas at a very unique point in time.”

http://www.bazillionpoints.com

Happy new year!

“Surprisingly fascinating.” –Philadelphia Weekly

“A study in the unpredictability of innovation.” – Rhizome

“An insider’s view on the history of the Chamberlin and the Mellotron, which isn’t always pretty.” – Echoes

“The Mellotron stays cool.” – Brian Wilson

“This is where sampling started.” – Jon Brion

Bazillion Points Publishing is delighted to announce the long-awaited DVD release of the acclaimed and unusual music documentary, Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie, by Dianna Dilworth, coming January 2010 in NTSC Region 0 format packed with bonus features in a deluxe Digipak.

Mellodrama explores the five-decades-long rise and fall of the Chamberlin and its better-known successor the Mellotron—the first musical keyboards to play the prerecorded sounds of other instruments. Essentially the first sampler, its haunting sound has changed the production and texture of popular music, from the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” to Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

Featuring Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Ian McDonald of King Crimson, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, famed L.A. producer Jon Brion, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, singer-songwriter Michael Penn, author Brian Kehew, (Recording the Beatles), as well as members of Opeth, Bigelf, Maroon 5, and former employees of the Mellotron and Chamberlin companies. While the musicians tell their tales, the engineers and experts deliver the gear porn by taking you inside the captivating contraption.

Mellodrama screened at over a dozen festivals throughout the world in 2009, including the CMJ Film Festival in New York, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Portobello Film Festival in London, Atlantic Film Festival in Canada, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Tucson Film and Music Festival, and was specially programmed by Stephen O’Malley of Sunn 0))) at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in Switzerland.

“While everybody knows the sound of the instruments, most people have never heard of the Mellotron or the Chamberlin,” says director Dianna Dilworth. “I hope Mellodrama will change that.”

Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie DVD includes the 80 minute film, 30 minutes of DVD extras, and an 8-page booklet containing an essay by Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues and several illustrated machine timelines.

Preorders and more info are now available right over here:

http://www.mellodramadvd.com

My Italian publisher Arcana Edizioni has just released SOUND OF THE BEAST: La storia definitiva dell’heavy metal, available wherever Italian books are sold. Five years have passed since the core manuscript of Sound of the Beast has been updated, and since the worlds of metal have hardly been dormant in that time, Arcana wisely thought it would be a good idea if I could briefly recap some recent events. I was happy to do that, and I’ll repost those thoughts here in draft form in the near future. If you capiscono l’italiano, you can read the 2009 portion of the book HERE, thanks to la Repubblica XL.

Unfortunately, the book doesn’t include my hand-tailored Italian thanks list to people who have been great friends, hosts, and inspirations over the years, so a special million thanks to: Dianna Dilworth Christe, Enzo Mazzeo and Grind Zone, maestro Fabio Frizzi, M. Cristina Vanza, Adam Chapman, Sarah Manguso, the American Academy in Rome, Claudio Simonetti, Bulldozer, Raw Power, and all the knife-wielding, zombie-chasing, bright-red blooded Italian film directors who have inspired heavy metal for decades.

Gratzie mille di mi cuore rosso!

Bazillion Points Books just received the page proofs of Annick Giroux’s “fantastic beyond belief” heavy metal cookbook HELLBENT FOR COOKING. This luxurious 224pp monster has over 100 recipes from more than 30 countries, and will be released on November 22. You can PRE-ORDER HERE, or visit the mothership Bazillion Points site for more info.

Pictured above, from top: Sunday Brunch Lamb Roast, by Philip Lynott of THIN LIZZY’s mother Philomena; Whisky Demon Bacalao, by FAUSTCOVEN; Soul Brownies, by Wino of THE OBSESSED / SAINT VITUS; and Dutch Space Cake, by THANATOS.

Death to false meals!

Bazillion Points Books has been a harsh taskmasker this summer, stemming the demo tide a little bit. Well, here’s a trickle before the floodgates reopen. This is producer Russ Russell’s wrist presiding over the mixing of Napalm Death’s The Code Is Red…Long Live the Code album at Foel Studios in Wales.

In case you’re wondering why your grindcore project doesn’t sound very good—it’s probably because you don’t have the UUURGH and AARGH channels properly tweaked!

Photo by me, sometime around spring 2005.

Artist Mark Riddick—of Logos From Hell, Slayer, Metalocalypse, Devourment, ad nauseous nauseum design fame—is pointing his pens toward a worthy cause:

In March 2009 my one-year-old son, Nathan Riddick, was diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder called Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus (NDI). By purchasing this limited edition signed print and T-Shirt package ($25), you will be making a monetary contribution to the NDI Foundation in support of research for this rare condition that affects four of one million people.

So glorify your bodily temple and the walls of the temple you live in with the inspirational power of skulls, larvae, leeches, grubs, worms, and viscera. I did. And I’d like to think that next year the NDI Foundation will commission Mark to design all their fundraising materials.

HELP MARK RIDDICK