scorpions In Trance
goatwhore studio report
extremity retained death metal book excerpt!
e xt r e m e ly e xt r e m e d e c i b e l m ag az i n e . c o m
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Dave
Brockie 1963-2014 a tribute to oderus
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june 2014 // No. 116
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Floor Vallenfyre Marty Friedman Young Widows Lord Mantis Devil You Know
e xtr e m e ly e xt r e me
June 2014 [T116] decibelmagazine.com
68 cover story
dave brockie
The universe mourns
upfront 12 news Great, more fucking obituaries 16 metal muthas:
pyrrhon
24 archspire Hilarious riff tracks 26 lost society Speed kills
No skepticism in this house
28 young widows Happiness is all the rage
17 killing is my business Press charges
30 acheron Sacrifice and termination
18 grinding it out Extreme teenage makeover
32 lord mantis Degenerated and vegetated
19 brewtal truth Omens of liver disease
34 stoneburner Drawn and quartered together
20 cry now, cry later The d’oh in Udo 20 studio report:
36 gravehill Ugly in the mourning
goatwhore
Their rage is relentless
features
reviews
38 call and response with
81 lead review Conflicting approaches team up and fight for Mayhem on Esoteric Warfare
devil you know
Howard Jones worships our false idols 40 vallenfyre Rebirth in the family 42 floor Friends in low places 44 book except:
extremity retained Vignettes from Jason Netherton’s new death metal chronicle
48 special feature:
going non-metal
When the riot turns pussy
82 album reviews Records that don’t get high, but if you’re holding… including the latest from Eyehategod, Triptykon, Down, Skinfather and Autopsy 108 sub:culture Max Cavalera’s roots are showing 112 south pole dispatch Chopped and Scrooged
52 q&a: marty friedman The prodigal rising sun 56 the decibel
hall of fame
cover photo by Jamie Betts contents photo by Locked Illusions Photography
The entrance of In Trance launched Scorpions to new proto-metal heights
Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright© 2014 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All issn 1557-2137 | usps 023142 rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. 4 : j u n e 2 0 14 : d e c i b e l
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extremely extreme
June 2014 [T116]
Publi s her
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Editor -In-Chief
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Dave Brockie’s death, I found myself deep inside a YouTube rabbit hole. The first clicks were classic videos “Gor-Gor,” “Black and Huge” and “The Road Behind,” followed by a few minutes of Phallus in Wonderland, then a sample of a more recent cover of Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” before I eventually landed on GWAR’s 1990 appearance on The Joan Rivers Show. If you haven’t seen it, that eight-minute segment embodies everything that made GWAR and Brockie’s Oderus Urungus character so special. Highlights include Oderus recalling the story of Charlotte police confiscating the Cuttlefish of Cthulhu after removing it with a laser saw before claiming that they wanted to smoke confiscated crack with him at the station. I have no idea what airs on TV now (guessing live executions and celebrity bowel movements), but the fact that this was on in the middle of the day 24 fucking years ago is deeply satisfying. My wife similarly turned to YouTube for closure. Though not a hardcore GWAR—or metal—fan, she and her sister used to sing along to “Sick of You” while driving around as teenagers. Soon she stumbled upon “Sick of You”’s crude but endearing video, which she never knew actually existed. After watching it, she called me and said, “I would have never imagined something so ridiculous could ever actually bring a tear to my eye.” I never stopped to think about what GWAR meant, because I never had to. GWAR was just always there, at least for me when I first started dabbling in extreme metal in 1990. Most metal fans likely never did either, unless you were one of the countless members of the Richmond arts and music community that Brockie and GWAR supported for over a quarter-century. Whether that was helping Municipal Waste and Lamb of God get their first major national tour exposure or simply employing half the city’s artist population at the Slave Pit over the years, Brockie did this not out of obligation or for political capital, but simply because that’s the kind of guy he was. Even the music he wrote and recorded with GWAR for our Decibel podcast was a complete favor, which made things that much more awkward when I had to tell him that I thought the first version he turned in totally sucked. Luckily, a provocateur of Brockie’s stature was impervious to criticism. If he wasn't, GWAR wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds, let alone 30 years. Fortunately for us, he crammed more prosthetics, blood and jizz in that three-decade span than anyone else will see in their lifetimes. As J. Bennett’s wise friend said [see page 78], thanks for the memories, Dave. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
Patty Moran patty@decibelmagazine.com
co ntr ibuting ar tis ts
Chuck BB, Mark Rudolph
adve r tising
Albert Mudrian
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540.878.5756 unde r to nes secti on
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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright ©2014 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PR INTED IN U SA
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fanbase Reader of the Month 1989, when the usual aesthetics of the era—neon, peroxide, glitz—segued into something that looked a little like a snuff video shot in a Third World war zone. The band wore costumes that suggested The Road Warrior staged by the creators of Fraggle Rock. I sat transfixed, finger poised over the record button on the VHS remote, waiting for a sign. Was I in or out? Then the title came up on screen—“Black and Huge”—and, laughing, totally awestruck, I hit record. It’s very sad to have lost Dave Brockie, a true original with big smarts and a killer sense of humor. You claim to have read our Editor in Chief’s book Choosing Death a dozen times. Don’t you have any more books?
Nick Crowe
Toronto, Ontario This issue’s cover story is a tribute to Dave Brockie. Pretty much every metal fan has a GWAR story. What’s yours?
Like any Canadian metalhead of a certain age (read: trudging into middle age), I grew up watching Much Music’s metal show, The [Pepsi] Power Hour. Sure, you’d get your share of hair metal (not to mention baffling, repeated plays of bands like Vow Wow, King Kobra and Autograph), but they’d also sprinkle in a fair bit of the good stuff: Celtic Frost, Razor, Morbid Angel’s classic “Immortal Rites” clip. But there was nothing like the shock one day, probably in
8 : j u n e 2 0 14 : d e c i b e l
Yes, Choosing Death is a perpetual favorite, as are other transcendent works of literature like David Lee Roth’s Crazy From the Heat and Dave Stieb’s Tomorrow I’ll Be Perfect. As a father of two small children, it’s as much Captain Underpants as Cormac McCarthy these days, but I tend to like the dark stuff: Daniel Woodrell, George Pelecanos, Ron Rash, Benjamin Whitmer, Pete Dexter, Frank Bill and the like: page-turners with grit and substance. Shameless plug: I’m also a writer and my first novel, A Cold Night for Alligators, was published in Canada and the U.S. three years ago. I’m busy finishing up another based on the five years I spent working as a janitor in a psychiatric hospital. You’re a resident of the great country of Canada. Can you take a moment to dispel a myth that we Americans have about our dear neighbors to the north?
Well, I eat bacon, settled on plaid as a “look” in about grade two, and am pretty sure I’ve used “eh” in both its inquisitive and punctuative forms today. But, digging a little deeper into the lexicon of Canadian stereotypes, I’ve given up wearing beaver pelts on casual Friday and no, I don’t know your friend Ron from Ontario. Yes, our milk really does comes in bags, but no, I’m not more polite than you—just tired and passive. But you don’t need me to dispel stereotypes of the kinder, gentler variety—our mayor Rob Ford has been busy destroying those, one drunken stupor at a time. We’re already working on the dB Tour lineup for 2015, but we value reader input, so tell us who should be on it?
Very tough to top this year’s lineup, but how about easing up on the tempos a little for us fogeys in the back? I’d have it double as an all-Decibel HOF tour: Sleep, Floor, Eyehategod and Earth (because Earth 2 is hitting the HOF this year, right?) with regional support acts Rwake, Weedeater, Pallbearer, YOB, Keelhaul, Inter Arma, Eagle Twin and Milligram (yes, the last two have split, but since you got Carcass and Gorguts on the road, I’m sure this is just a niggly detail). Biggest challenge will be getting the whole caravan through Canadian customs for the northern dates. So, I’d suggest a standby roster of Canuck replacement players including Sons of OTIS, fiftywatthead, Bison BC and, hey, if we’re aiming large, Voivod and Sacrifice.
Chuck BB is the illustrator of the graphic novels Black Metal, Vol. 1. and Black Metal, Vol. 2 For more info and art, head over to chuckbb.com
web gems presents:
f Suckness o s o ie n h Symp In which we recount the most the insane and inspired posts of g blo month from our comrades in
NAPALM DEATH COVERS CARDIACS
OTEP SHAMAYA CLAIMS “FAKE NEWS” SITES “SENSATIONALIZED” HER MAYHEM/HOMOPHOBIA TWEETS It’s hard to give too much of a shit about Otep in 2014, but in case you inexplicably do, here’s your long story short: The “cultural arsonist” frontwoman recently tweeted “Lots of ppl asking why we aren’t on @MayhemFest this year. Could it be that one of their corporate sponsors is openly homophobic? Hmmm...” She then promptly backtracked and belittled all the “fake news blogs” that reported on the tweet, saying, “They invent fake controversies w/out investigating, w/out questioning, just to incite readers.” So much for accountability. How will we ever forge ahead?
Here’s something actually important. U.K. experimentalists Cardiacs have had a massive influence on tons of the independent music we cherish today. Napalm Death agree. Sadly, Cardiacs ringleader Tim Smith is still slowly recovering from a heart attack and stroke he suffered in 2010. So, our favorite Brummie grinders tackled “To Go Off and Things,” now available on their Bandcamp page, “recorded in tribute to the man (and the band), but also as a humble gesture to raise funds for Tim’s ongoing rehabilitation.” Go throw down less than two bucks for a noble cause at napalmdeath.bandcamp.com.
Arch Enemy War Eternal
TAGS: NAPALM DEATH, CARDIACS
Devil You Know Seven Years Alone
TAGS: OTEP, ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK MAYHEM FESTIVAL
METAL DUDE SINGS KATY PERRY’S “DARK HORSE” IN 20 DIFFERENT STYLES Katy Perry’s most recent album, Prism, has a lot of shitty songs, and the trap-leaning “Dark Horse” is one of them. For no good reason, a longhair recorded himself covering the hit single in 20 different vocal styles, some of which are metal. As MS co-founder Vince says, “Although five of the 20 styles in which he sings … are metal—Iron Maiden, Pantera, Metallica, Slipknot and Type O Negative—I actually kinda enjoyed the non-metal sections more; his impersonations of Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men and John Mayer are spot-on.” As far as we’re concerned, his Peter impression “steeles” the show. TAGS: KATY PERRY
PROFESSOR REWARDS STUDENT FOR USING GWAR ON AN EXAM How could we not include a GWAR post? Not sure what class MetalSucks reader Miles B. was taking (presumably something historyrelated), but in answer to the two-point bonus question “Who built the pyramids?” (provided answers: aliens, Egyptians, George W. Bush), he drew a picture of Oderus. His teacher very awesomely remarked, “Best answer so far!” and then followed up with, “With the help of King Diamond?” Our profs would have fractured our skulls with yardsticks, so good work, Miles! TAGS: GWAR
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Sick of You Visit the official Decibel channel at Metal Injection http://www.metalinjection.tv/decibel