Saturday, April 30, 2011

COVERED IN SHIT: The Guilty Pleasures of Ambassador MAGMA

Behold, my friends, another tribute to the twin unifying powers of guilt and shame. I've been trying to draw an IllCon contribution out of the beautiful and talented Ambassador MAGMA (who has in fact been a Bro sice pre-blog days) for what seems like years. But ironically, it was the suggestion that he reveal his deepest, darkest, ugliest pleasure on these hallowed pages that actually ended up forcing his hand. Oh, the irony!
The good Ambassador writes Toppled Idols, and is also the sole creator of the "bong-crushingly epic wizard comics" of Symptom of The Universe. We are glad to have him.

- Cobras





Hello IllConnoisseurs, had to chime in on this shit-storm of guilty pleasure. Having worked retail for some twelve or so years, I've heard the worst of the worst and like Orpheus, have returned from the seamy underworld to gift it to you. When Shelby ripped opened your third eye/floodgates/broke the fourth wall in asking what the most embarrassing lurker on our computer was (our “basket case” if you will), I did some serious spiritual clam digging for my biggest sin.



Industrial music was really the big venereal disease of the 90s. It was fucking everywhere, it was fucking awful, it ruined many a storied metal band and I still fucking listen to it to this day.

Cleopatra Records released truckloads of tributes, industrial or otherwise to such esteemed cultural luminaries as Weezer, Cher, The Cure, U2, The Beatles, The White Stripes, The Offspring etc. etc. ad nauseum. Pretty much any big name with an insatiable fan base was fair game for forking over a little royalty money to catch some of that coveted mall goth cash.

They also paid tribute to some bands that actually deserve it, but these "tributes" are more "defamation/defecation" than tribute...

Exhibit A:

Covered in Black; An Industrial Tribute to the Kings of High Voltage





Just hearing the beginning to Thunderstruck played on a sequencer cracks a shit-eating grin across my face. I don't really know who most of these bands are, they are inexcusably awful yet truly guilty pleasures in my book.

AC/DC wrote some of the best songs in the history of music, which saves some of the piss-poor musicianship/production you will find here... the weird dub/bizarro world version of Back in Black, the lesbian-until-graduation-whisper version of Squealer, the Godflesh version of For Those About to Rock with corny alternate lyrics ("we dispute you!") to the laughable studio-chant-along TNT. Like a wheel, I hope you spin this. And don't let anybody mess you around.

(Full disclosure; they blew half the budget on designing the cover.)



Download

UPDATE: In doing the exhaustive research for this post, I've discovered a "remix" album tribute to AC/DC put out by Cleopatra. So you lucky devils may be in for a round two...

5 comments:

Shelby Cobras said...

Anyone else heard Hayseed Dixie, the much-more-appropriate bluegrass AC/DC cover band?

Roger Camden said...

like I said before, the Godflesh cover is totally worthwhile

Mister Booze said...

This reminds me of that Die Krupps tribute to Metallica album.

http://youtu.be/7dU-AAsHRQg

Do you have that one?

MCR said...

Cleopatra released tribute albums to everyone back in the day, all with the same bands
But I have to say that The Electric Hellfire Club were awesome and this shitty cover doesn't do them justice (they also covered INXS and Rolling Stones in other cleopatra tribute abominations)
I bought this one http://www.amazon.com/Virgin-Voices-Vol-Tribute-Madonna/dp/B00000IFT9 because it was 99 cents and I just had to hear KMFDM do material girl, remember, no youtube back then.

Once they ran out of industrial acts the got back together all the shitty 80s synth pop bands and made more tribute albums

Ambassador MAGMA said...

Shelby; I haven't heard any bluegrass AC/DC covers but you just tickled the damn backwater Kentucky genetics that make up half my body.

Roger; yes, Godflesh is probably the only self-respecting band on this.

Mister Booze; I can only think of one thing funnier than the intro to Thunderstruck played on a synthesizer would be a sweet Kirk Hammett jam programmed into a skynet-like generator with a black-light strobe played by a rainbow-bedreadlocked glow-sticker... I will definitely check that out.

drawhla; I think there will soon be tributes to Cleopatra tributes. The last serpent on Earth will eat its own feathered tail as the cannibal black hole of its one eye engulfs the world in a seedless reverberation of visible white noise. Forever.

and Aylmer; Yes... yes it fucking is.