Thursday, July 23, 2009

Big Fat Box Of Shit: Best Metal Album Ever?

As it turned out, I was indeed not screwed over, and am now kina seeing this chick behind her boyfriends back, hopefully for the rest of the summer, till we both go back to university, when I will be sad :(. Anyhow, its been a while cos I've been busy doing absolutely fucking nothing. Which is awesome. Borrowing more money and drinking Corona and lime, listening to the black brokeNCYDE, and checking out awesome Deathcore bands. Anyhow, the reason for this post was brought to me a couple of days ago, after a lengthy and costly game of poker, during which me and some friends brought out an old personal relic, "Big Fat Box Of Shit" by Crotchduster.


The album, which is essentially a 9 track rip into every genre of metal thus far (its a shame this came out before screamo crunk), and showing the world how silly and easy it is to make metal, is the creation of messieurs Slippery Jim, Fornicus, and Kane, who is a dog, and plays the drums.

Kane, sporting what is no doubt a zOMG brutal obscure death metal band that peaked a few decades ago t-shirt.

Fornicus, one of the two human members of the band, is also known as Jason Suecof, the well known producer and mixer, and also plays guitar in Capharnuam, some reasonably nondescript tech death band that had Matt Heafey of Trivium on vocals at some point. He is probably best known for being pushed off his wheelchair (yes, Invalid) into a swimming pool by Chimera on an awesome youtube video I can't find at the moment, and this one, which was on the end of the Chimera DVD:


Hes been looking for the greatest guitar sound...he won't get it here, so we'll send it to Andy Sneap


The bands shindig is best summed up by the lengthy, but very amusing "about" section in their myspace, and website which i think is down now, being that they were pretty much a one off with this album, and can't afford to keep hosting it:


Crotchduster exists for one reason and one reason only; tax fraud.

I know you were expecting something like "To put out the most bone crushing, devestatingly brutal music ever in the history of man" or, "To bring about an end to the lies of Christ with music spawned in the lowest depths of hell, and lyrics written for us by the goat lord himself".

No, no. Thats just ridiculous and silly, and quite frankly beneath us.. but hiding income from the government, well hot damn, thats a worthwhile pursuit. How does our Ponzi scheme work? I'll tell you (and by "you'' I mean YOU, and that's it)..

You go blabbing this to anyone else, and by Lucifer's beard, I swear I'll tell the guys in Black Witchery what you said about their sexual identity.

To grasp our financial secrets you have to know Bill Williams. Williams is the only human (that we know of) capable of inter-dimensional travel. Like any good capitalist, Williams used this ability for greed and plunder. He found a dimension (The real name of it is unknown, Williams insists we call it "Williamsburgland". He's sort of self important that way) that at one time had been the pinnacle of advancement. This came to a screeching hault when they ran out of the one substance they use for everything (Combine all the uses we have for water and petroleum, and you'll get an idea of the importance of this liquid to them).

This is a classic case of demand waiting for a supply. He told us (Crotchduster) of this opportunity, and at our urging he brought us back soil and air samples (He's not scientifically inclined like we are, the only reason he can travel inter-dimensionally is because he's got a PhD in dumptruck mechanics and he just blasted his way there).

From these we were able to reconstruct the cellular make-up of this mysterious liquid (I'd tell you what it is, but screw you, find your own dimension of people to exploit). Let's just say that one of the ingredients is ground up goat teeth, and all their goats are extinct due to a shift in atmospheric pressure on account of the universe expanding the way it does.

Now, here's the crux of the whole matter:

We make this liquid (which we call Mammal Sauce) and we give it to Williams. Williams takes it (along with a dumptruck full of paying tourists) to Williamsburgland, and sells it for a price that would make you gag. He takes 50% of the profits, and deposits our 50% in an inter-dimensional account (the exchange rate between currencies is roughly even).

Beats the hell out of an off shore tax shelter, doesn't it? How the hell do you trace money across dimensions? You don't. So, whenever we need some dough we just mix up a batch of Mammal Sauce, give Williams a couple withdrawal slips, and await his return. To keep ourselves busy, we write music. The writing process for Crotchduster is very unique. See, inter-dimensional travel puts quite a strain on Williams' brain. It upsets his brain chemical balance, screws with his central nervous system, and gives him temporary clairvoyance. In short, he goes stark raving mad. (Thats why we send Cain with him - Somebody's got to drive the truck while Williams is incapacitated. Plus, Cain writes down everything Williams says during these episodes. These mad ramblings later become Chrotchduster's lyrics.) So, our music has to be as crazy and disjointed as the lyrics. And, because of the temporary clairvoyance, every song we've ever written has fit perfectly with the lyrics we recieved upon Williams' return.

The recording techniques we use are unique as well. We only use one mic, and our multitrack is 16 two track machines from 1957 synched together with a stopwatch and some telephone cord. Most of the music is written, performed, and recorded by Fornicus and Slippery Jim. Cain's expertise really shines through during the mixdown process. Being a dog allows Cain to hear into frequency ranges that we, as humans, cannot. Although we can't hear them, these frequencies have octaves that color the things we can hear. So, all we had to do was teach Cain how to use the console and all the outboard gear.

So, to recap;

Williams gets rich off our Mammal Sauce. We get rich off his ability to travel to other dimensions and we also get lyrics for Crotchduster (which is nothing more than a cover for us to portray ourselves as "starving artists" so we can continue to claim the Earned Income Credit on our tax returns). Nobody pays taxes on any of this money, and we save a dying dimension in the process. Beats the holy hell out of any other crappy ass reason for making music.

Except pussy.. that's still the best reason ever.




So anyway, throughout the album they flip between rap, death metal, nu metal, that weird metally punky style you sometimes get, and pretty much everything else. Bands I noticed mimicked included Slayer, Obituary, Megadeth, Morbid Angel, The Berzerker, possibly Korn, and a load others. The best thing though, and one that me and my friends listened to on the way to wacken, reciting it word for word, is the last track "Crotchopus", a 14 minute epic. From the "I'm trying to masturbate!" at the beginning to the conversation at the end, we fucking loved the childishness and hilarity of the whole thing. A particular favorite, from the "Hate Mail" section at the end, was the quote "Jenny, a womans job consists of anal, swallowing loads, and shutting up, it says so in the bible". We would loudly recite this all festival long, to our immature glee.





Also, as jokey as the band are, I have found no better musical expression of male desire than the beginning of Big Top Williams, with the extremely epic sounding "Let me fuck your pussy, let me fuck that fucking shit" passage. I personally believe this to have more truth and artistic integrity to it than any other love song ever, and any poem, including William Shakesperes "Sonnet 130". It's so bullshit free and direct, that it pretty much encompasses romantic intent, without getting all gay about it, like Type O Negative. Just go after the system of a down bit, around 0:35.



As well as this theres the "live" song, "Stars Ingenious Cooter", which successfully makes fun of the live performance of every metal band ever, Mammal sauce, with the gloriously gay sounding metalcore "Wooaaahhhh" riff, which pretty much nails the parody, Let me into starfish Land, which has an awesome detune chugfest riff while singing in a gruff voice about wanting to lick someone's asshole...and plenty more i can't think of right now. Every Parody is lovingly executed in a way that only someone wayyy into metal could do, making it seem just as affectionate as malicious. inadvertently one of the best metal albums I have.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Deja Vu

i am probably going to soon get fucked off by a girl, and spend the rest of the summer practicing guitar, drinking alone, and writing death metal songs about rape........like every summer

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Another awesome night: Crunk Kids vs Hipsters

So, the friends outdoor indie film i saw last night wasn't actually that bad in terms of hipster activity, a few jumpers and minimal thick glasses and silly beards, but the most ridiculous people there by far were me and my brother, so i don't really have a right to poke fun at anyone else.


Lets get freaky now, lets get fucking freaky now

The film and the music weren't that bad either, although seeing as it was live there's no chance of a youtube. Afterwards, as people started the usual "oh its getting late and I have an early start tomorrow" routene, I managed to pull enough of a tantrum to get a sizable amount of people to stay out. We hit a pub, then me and my brother went back to this girl my brother knows flat with another girl he knows, I got semi fucked up on her mums wine, tried to make custard and failed horribly, heavily made out with one of the girls to Killswitch Engage, stopping just short of second (she had a boyfriend or something), and left at 6. Another fucking ace night! Also, at one point when we were both topless in the living room, my brother burst in dressed as a Darlek, and shouted "Look what I found!!!!", then realised it was on the wrong way round and left to go bully the other girl who was trying to sleep.

Despite earlier ballaching, summers also being pretty good. I not got my results yet, but I've ended up chilling back home in Lancaster, got enough overdraft to not have to work, cept a week helping out at the uni graduation for £500, and its been class so far. Phewwwwww, now so long as the results are ok.............

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Get Crunk: An evening with brokeNCYDE

A few weeks ago, I posted about a night I went to see and interview brokeNCYDE for Headbang. As promised, here is said interview. I'm well aware that as far as interviews go, it's pretty poor, but hell, considering Mikl was simultaniously doing this and checking myspace, it ain't too bad.

Headbang: Firstly, an introduction, tell us about how the band came to be and about where you’re from.


Mikl: I’m Mikl, this is Sev, erm, we started the band back in 2004, our girlfriends broke up with us around this time so our music was partly inspired by that.


Headbang: What’s the Scene like in new Mexico


Mikl: Mostly Metal, so us doing what we do was really different so we just wanted to step out and reach out to a lot of different people


Headbang: Did that cause any conflict with the Metal scene in the beginning?


Se7en: Well, there was the metal scene and like our scene. We like invented our own scene.


Headbang: So in the beginning before you established your scene, was it ever hard to get gigs and stuff because you didn’t fit in with anything?


Se7en: We started opening up for metal bands, and like, our music’s so gay compared to metal, but we still won some fans from it.


Headbang: So you kind of started your own scene from the local metal scene?

Se7en: Yeah, kina


Headbang: So, first time in England, how’s the reaction been and everything?


Mikl: Really good, a lot of kids come out and we’re really happy


Headbang: Surpirised?


Mikl: Yeah, its really surprising, we’re thankful for all of the fans that come out.


Headbang: Where are you going after this?


Mikl: home tomorrow, then it’s the warped tour, then we come back hear for a show in Holland and a show in London, then we have time off finally. The after that we have a five week tour in Europe. We’re always touring!


Headbang: Tell us about the new album you’re about to release


Mikl: Yeah, its on myspace now, I don’t know why, but it drops the 15th here and the 16th in the States.


Headbang: And how are reactions?


Mikl: A lot of people are happy, there’s people who don’t like how we re-did some of the songs, but they don’t understand that we had to because when we first did them it was in a closet. When you’re in a studio it’s really hard to replicate what you know, we tried to do what we could to make it sound as close as possible, but it had to sound like an even record, and true fans understand that.


Headbang: If you could put together a tour with anyone else, who would you chose?


Mikl: I think a crazy tour would be us, 3OH!3, Hollywood Undead and Breath Carolina


Headbang: How do you feel having polarized opinions so much, in that people either hate or love you?


Mikl: It was what it is, people either hate us or love us, If you don’t like us it’s not that hard to go to someone else.


Headbang: Where did the idea of the song “Bree Bree!” come from?


Se7en: Grindcore bro! Grindcore, Metal, Hardcore, that’s all there was back in New Mexico, we wanted to make fun of the local band’s vocals so we just got some club beats with their vocals and made this random song.


Headbang: Which Grindcore bands are you into?


Se7en: Job for a Cowboy, Dr Acula, I like a lot.


Headbang: A lot of people say it was “Waking the Cadaver” inspired.


Se7en: People thought it was a song against cops, or a song for vegetarianism, there’s so many rumours about the song, and no one knows the true origin of it, its just a fun song making fun of grindcore! We didn’t expect it to be the song that everyone knew us for.


Headbang: Are there any plans to do more pig squeals in the future?


Mikl: No, some of the songs have a little bit of grind, but nothing intense


Se7en: Haha Its kina hard to do good squeals anyway, we were really trying and I didn’t know how to squeal at all so I just kind of did whatever.


Headbang: Out of all the shows you’ve played what have been the worst and the best?


Mikl: I don’t see any shows as bad, I see them as learning experiences


Se7en: As long as they’re kids there and they’re happy, it can be 5 kids or 5000.


Mikl: There have been show with not many being there, but we still play our hearts out onstage.


Headbang: What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?


Mikl: Who knows, I’d probably be working somewhere trying to make a living, looking for my nitch in life. Sevens always been doing music so he’d still probably be doing music.


Headbang: Before brokeNCYDE were you in any other bands or anything?


Mikl: No, I have never been in a band, ever.


Se7en: I was like this solo, underground hip-hop artist. It was way different from brokeNCYDE, it was very lyrical. About the government, politics, really complex stuff. (laughing) it was way deeper than brokeNCYDE.

Headbang: Hows do you guys unwind on tour?


Mikl: We really don’t, we’re always touring so when we do get time off it’s like maybe a week


Se7en: And during that time we’re always doing interviews or writing lyrics or doing something involving the band. Its been going on like this for over 2 years now.


Headbang: What are your favorite alcoholic drinks?


Mikl: I don’t drink, but these guys drink everything. From hard liquor to Corona. Everything, alcohols alcohol.


Headbang: How long can you see the band going on in its current state?


Mikl: I don’t know, we just take it a day at a time. We don’t wana look forward. That’s probably the right thing to do, but we don’t wana be disappointed y’know? We just want to continue doing this, making people happy, that’s all we care about. Our fans.


So, we got all the "its all about the fans" cliches in there! And not even a hint of irony, exept from good ol' se7en. Pretty funny how seriously Mikl's taking this whole thing, when they're the most ridiculous thing out there. Also, who'd have thought one of the men behind 40oz dosn't drink. Well, fuck it, they crunk my world anyway so good times. Went cruising today in my friends new saxo blasting their album out...it was sweet. Now im gonna go and watch some short film by my hipster friends with live hipster music, if anything funny happens, or just any unintentionally hilarious hipster activity i'll post a report. I expect there to be lots of jumpers and thick rimmed glasses. Me and my brother are of course going in brightly colored street wear and shutter shades. My brother's already been pissing off the guy by posting on the facebook wall for the event "does the main charactor die in the end?", which happens, predictably, to be true. Spoiler warning. But to be fair, the main charactor dies at the end of all these arty films, so it wasn't much of one. Saw one of the bands a few days ago, because it was dark all i could really see was the apple logo on the Mandatory mac these people always seem to use. Kina depressing. I guess i should support my friends artistic endevours, even if i do just end up embarressing them in front of their hipster friends, which seems likely to happen.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Important musical developments of the new millenia: Attack Attack

Its great that nowadays, people seem to be combining more or less anything, bringing everyone closer together and making us all more open minded. I mean, thanks to brokeNCYDE and Dot Dot Curve hamfistedly jamming some screams over club/techno beats, i can now appreciate pop music much more, thus becoming a much more pleasant, tolerant member of society. In fact, who knows where we would be without the revolutionary spirits of the aforementioned. "Spanky" from Dot Dot Curve perfectly displays this artistic attitude on the groups myspace:

"About Spanky..... he is a BAMF who just dont give a flying fuck what you think! why is he all inked up in funny shit? cuz he dont give a fuck. why does he have fucked up hair? cuz he just dont give a fuck. he does what he wants. if he likes it he does it and dont give a fuck if anyone else does. he doesnt care or want your approval. only thing spanky cares about is music."

Quite Mr Spanky.....BAMF indeed. Although this may sound like some sickeningly self indulgent pre-pubescent goth whining, it is actually a portrait of the mind of an artistic genius. I'm assuming BAMF means "Bad Ass Mother Fucker", but I'm not sure.

So anyway, even if Spanky does come off as kind of a douche, you gotta kina admire putting together completely different things in music. Although butthurt metal fans are whining about trueness, myspace hair and aload of other shit, they are just the angry confused voice of a bygon age, like my grandma getting angry at the fasion taste of Dante from the game "Devil May Cry".

So anyhow, the point of this post, is to say, that without this new experimental attitude to music, we would never have got the awesome "Stick Stickly", by Attack Attack. Now, unless you've already seen it, skip to 2:30 and let it play.........then get your mind blown!



And check out the fucking running dance at 2:53! I'm doing that next club I go to!



N.B I am aware that "experimental" music and combining genres or approaching them with a blaze attitude is not a new thing, in fact because my brother worships Mike Patton I am exposed to a lot of this kina thing, I just find my examples extra noteworthy cos its the kind of thing that pisses off so many people, and i really, really like it.