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

Former HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST mainman Tom Gabriel Fischer and Bazillion Points Books have announced November 2009 as the publication date for of ‘Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost.” Authored by Fischer with cooperation from HELLHAMMER/FROST partner Martin Eric Ain, the deluxe large-format 288pp hardcover will feature over 300 astonishing high-quality photos by Csaba Kézér, Martin Kyburz, and Andreas Schwarber documenting the very dawn of death metal and black metal.

Five years in the making, this extraordinary artifact sets an audacious new historical standard in heavy metal literature. Further information and sample photos are available RIGHT HERE.

HELLHAMMER’s adolescent hardships were played out in dramatic and sometimes violent episodes set in small villages around Zurich, Switzerland, during 1983 and 1984. The ultimate insider document of the earliest era of death metal and black metal, ‘Only Death Is Real’ documents this unique and cataclysmic moment in modern music history with hundreds of never-seen vintage images, classic artwork reprinted by kind permission of HR Giger, a full visual reference to HELLHAMMER promotional material, flyers, and memorabilia documenting the birth and evolution of extreme metal—all supported by sharp-tongued oral accounts direct from Tom Gabriel Fischer, Martin Ain, Stephen Priestly, Steve Warrior, and other members of the HELLHAMMER inner circle.

UPDATE 08/10/09: Last-minute photo additions will delay the release. Details to follow.

UPDATE: 10/17/09: Only Death Is Real is now prepared for press. We expect to announce an early 2010 release date and begin accepting pre-orders in the near future.

LINK

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Last weekend I was digging out Hanoi Rocks articles from old Kerrang!s to include as  backstory with Bazillion Points’ upcoming press mailing  of Andy McCoy’s autobiography. I got sidetracked looking for this long-lost photocomic battle between Cronos and Thor, the historic details of which must now immediately be brought to light.

Firstly, this bout ‘tween the “God of Thunder” and “Venom’s Black Metal King” leaves no question about the show business side of heavy metal in its peak years. Cronos looks evil as ever crawling over a castle ruin in his leather underwear—but he’s battling a force of good in a Crazy magazine-style realm laced with bad puns and fake blood! That the battle is waged over Thor’s wife Pantera reminds me that she was the most famous Pantera in heavy metal until about 1991.

Read ‘em and weep with laughter. Courtesy of Kerrang! #68, May 17-30, 1984.

I’m stunned at how well this video delineates our relationship, myself and each and every one of you anonymous blog surfers on an individual basis, and also the relationships of our forefathers and foremothers before us. Play this almost-soundless video on endless repeat while listening to these demos!

Thanks Jack Drury!

I’ll admit it, the demo queue is very, very long around here—I’m always glad to knock one off the stack when a high-quality reissue comes along. Considering the abundance of metal bands named Enforcer these days (nine at last count), this high-quality mid-80s Chicago band is never more than one blink of mistaken identity away from my mind.

Turns out I’m not the only one, as Stormspell Records has dressed up the 1984 demo by Enforcer [IL] with a befitting new cover, a truck of rehearsal cuts, and a bonus DVD. That’s a great idea, considering how this well this classed-up warhorse of a band fits with newcomers like The Gates of Slumber and old favorites like Count Raven. They don’t make rolling drums, tremolo dives, and dramatic vocals like this anymore—though more and more seem willing to try.

Here’s the opening track, the mid-tempo “High Treason,” from my tape. And yes, that’s my 14-year old scribbling in the cassette cover scan. Lots of C+ grades in handwriting class, big whup.

ENFORCER * “High Treason” from 1984 demo [10.3MB MP3]

CLASSIC CHICAGO METAL CD/DVD info at Stormspell Records

Considering that every film directed by Takeshi Miike is better than 98% of anything else, and that Deadly Outlaw Rekka is one of his best five movies, I’m surprised that his cinematic homage to Japanese proto-metal freaks Flower Travellin’ Band isn’t better known. Here’s a clip of the first five minutes of the film, set entirely to FTB’s eerie “Satori Pt. I.” I always describe this song as King Diamond singing for Slayer in 1971. Joe Yamanaka and Yuya Ichida from FTB also appear as gangsters in the movie.

I tried to see the reunited Flower Travellin’ Band in New York last winter, but they didn’t show. I guess I’ll catch them on the spritual plane.

Nobody told me, but a few weeks ago Alan Rapp’s Critical Terrain design blog posted eight minutes of an interview with Stephen O’Malley and plain ole writerly me concerning the self-generating and constantly-evolving visual and design dimensions of heavy metal.

LINK AND LOOK

Truthfully, since getting involved in the production of the Bazillion Points books, and while working on the expanded LOGOS FROM HELL with Mark Riddick, I have been giving these things some thought. It’s obvious that everything needs to get back to tape, scissors, and glue!

Thanks, Seldon Hunt!

Here’s my rough attempt to capture the spectacle of 42,000 Iron Maiden fans streaming into Sarsfield stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before losing their minds on March 28. Click that image for the full 3240-pixel-wide panorama. Actually, there should be another panel to the right to show the rear seating section — another giant flank of 8,000 or so fans.

This entire experience could not have been more huge. My intrepid she-woman and I walked many miles to the outskirts of the city, limping the last mile or so. We could hear Sepultura playing inside as the sun went down, but had to negotiate a line about two miles long before entering. Everyone arrived late—turns out Argentina was playing Venezuela in soccer. Of course Maiden knew that, and they stalled until well after the game was over. Hilarious.

The crush as the intro tape rolled was intense. You can see a tall chain link fence in the photo. Three small doors in that fence were the only passage to general admission. People were losing their heads pressing forward while Churchill’s voice rang out through the dusk. The funny thing was that this show was part of a Quilmes beer-sponsored music festival — but they didn’t sell beer. We accidentally entered through the wrong door, and access to our better seats (on the left in the photo) was blocked by a tall barbed-wire fence and a moat.

Then came Iron Maiden, playing classics to a sold-out crowd of 42,000 South Americans. Imagine a Superbowl game with every spectator cheering the same side, and without any dull moments. People were crying. The mood was a cross of jubilation and reverence. Since there was no room to move, a few thousand people just pogoed during the fast guitar bridge, evidently triggering earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the world in the weeks that followed.

Bruce Dickinson had his usual sharp words for Madonna fans and the authorities, but let’s face it — Iron Maiden has really conquered each and every country in the world like no other metal band.

I’ve already sold my ticket for next week’s Throbbing Gristle show at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, their first ever in New York, because I’m going to see and support my longtime friend and bandmate Fritz Welch HERE. Besides, I’ve unofficially sworn off oldies acts.

Anyway, I had an intense TG experience at the BAFICI film festival in Argentina last week. I was locked down for a daily screening of the Mellotron documentary, but I saw a few other movies — notably a set of experimental black and white travelogues that F.J. Ossang shot along the Portuguese seaside and joined to ominous Throbbing Gristle tracks like “Hamburger Lady” and “Convincing People.” My earholes were invaded by that pulsating hypnotic goo, and my terror nodes were stroked by those haunting elemental images and subliminal 6-6-6 patterns. I even had a morning dream about the rounded stone formations — before I knew anything about these films.

Here’s Silencio, sliced into three parts; it starts after a two-minute preamble. Sure, the cinematic experience is better than the YouTube video, so check local listings until forever.

When I was 14 I had it all — a weekly metal radio show on a college radio station that reached Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca (don’t discount Ithaca, S.O.D. were recording there!); an excellent wheelchair weed connection; a Colecovision; every Venom and Exciter album; a hard-rehearsing band that played Van Halen, Sabbath, and Dio covers; a New York State Regents diploma in view; and a grocery store within walking distance where we could surreptitiously watch Eric Adams from Manowar slice bologna behind the meat counter. Life was very good, all things considered. And then my Mom moved our family to Indiana—suck city. Let’s just say I soon grew numb surviving a storm of alienation, pain, aggravation, and frustration.

Three years later, after escaping at age 16 to live near metal mecca Montreal for a while, I was back in Indiana. Same forecast. But I started hearing about a bunch of skate punks who hung out in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis begging for spare change. Apparently they had a metalcore band, and had recorded a demo. That alone was notable — the few punk or harder edged rock bands in Indiana were oblivious to the trading scene. But Transgression were hip.

Befitting a city whose outcasts were mostly brutalized loners, Transgression combined hardcore punk, skinhead, and thrash metal style and music, and they now deserve a higher profile for their originality. In 1987-88, the era of knockoff thrash and death metal wannabes, Transgression concocted an unthinkably tuneful mixture of the hooks of SNFU and the blur of Cryptic Slaughter.Their great Cold World album on Manic Ears, the label that paved the way for Earache, is an overlooked gem, but this demo with one different guitarist is also pretty good. Like the record it features artwork by tattoo legend Guy Aitchison, and was produced by Paul Mahern of the Zero Boys — the Indy pioneer who also captured Italian hardcore act Raw Power’s classic releases.

TRANSGRESSION * “Better Days” 6-song demo [34.2MB rar]

Transgression has regrouped once or twice in recent years minus singer Paul Linhart, who was kind of an innocent 17-year old version of Mike D. Williams from Eyehategod. And a good lyricist! The guitarists Dino and John Zeps are at least still active in Indianapolis bands, and there’s a lot of visual evidence on the posthumous MySpace of Transgression trying out fancy big city hairstyles, sharing bills with Holy Terror and D.R.I., and palling around with Seth Putnam in 1988.

Transgression MySpace