Hey y'all I need your help. I'm looking to get mad laid in 2013 as my 2012 has been drier than the drum production on Danzig I. I've been training with the best Pick Up Artists in the nation, working on my extreme negging and peacocking skills. I think the perfect setting to try out my newfound talents is one of these rock n' roll cruises that all the bands are doing. Problem is I just can't figure out which one to go to! Here are just a small sampling of the band-themed cruises coming up. HELP ME PICK WHICH ONE TO GO ON!
The Kiss Kruise II seems somewhat appealing. Ladies love those big ol' Jews in clown makeup and Tommy Thayer is my favorite Ace Frehley, but in my experience it's mostly just old dads that love KISS. Also playing: Skid Row, Comedian Graham Elwood.
Lynyrd Skynrd's Simple Man Cruise I predict there is going to be some primo Southern bar hag strange to bang on this boat. According to the website, this is their 6th go-round! Some of the events scheduled include: Q&A With the band, BELLY FLOP CONTEST, Southern Rock karaoke and a tattoo social! Also playing: Doobie Brothers, Comedian Graham Elwood
311 Caribbean Cruise 2013 is like a homerun as far as hooking up with some sick ass heinas. 311 has THE HOTTEST fans and maybe, just maybe I'll get to smoke some trees with P-Nut! It's too early to list the 311 Theme Nights and other acts but I'm just going to go ahead and assume that Comedian Graham Elwood will be appearing.
The Weezer Cruise Ahh shit. This one isn't happening in 2013 :( By the looks of the lineup it looks like it was basically "The Dudes in Dinosaur Jr Cruise featuring Weezer" though. Also playing: Comedian Graham Elwood.
Mayercraft Carrier 2 Ok this has to be just one big sex boat. Everyone knows John Mayer is the biggest pimp in all of the world. I'm just worried he'll steal all the chicks for himself? Also playing: Comedian Graham Elwood.
Yes' Cruise To The Edge YES! This is going to be the #1 get together for prog cougs in 2013! I duno wtf is going on with Yes right now btw. They kicked out Jon Anderson and have a tribute band guy singing and the dude from The Buggles is playing keys. Sheesh. Still this cruise should be pretty sweet and I'm def going to hit it up. BTW my PUA name is Skeevin. If you see me on the boat say whut up. CRUISE TO THE EDGE DOWN BY THE RIVERRRRRR!
Rock Legends II There's some pretty sweet fuckin' bands playing this cruise, but there's too many of them and you just know they are going to steal all the single ladies from us civilian plebs. I REALLY don't need to compete with the current Blue Oyster Cult drummer just to get laid at sea. And I can't really concentrate on my game while Big Jim Dandy of Black Oak Arkansas is sashaying around in his sexy white spandex. Fuck this.
Might as well just call this one POSER CRUISE 2013.
Apparently there are THREE competing metal cruises that have caused some controversy in the sacred internet metal nerd scene. More on those later...
During the previous two installments, here and here, it gradually became apparent that even amongst the bad album artwork that plagues the Internet and peoples music collections there are even worse examples of dreadful artistic vision and crap delivery. Previous posts concentrated on art that was in the most part actually drawn/painted/dribbled out by someone. They might not have had much of a idea about anatomy or have ever seen a women naked but they at least possess, in the loosest sense, charm.
Tonight's post deals with those most heinous of culprits when it comes to bad album artwork. The Photoshop abortions. Your technology can't save you.
To kicks things off, IllCon follower SoulReaper recommended this blinding piece of ham fisted photo shopping nonsense. Dismal Euphony....dismal euphotoshoppy. Sorry.
This was always one of the first things that came into my head whenever anyone mentioned bad photo-shopping. You have all manner of tools at your disposal yet you can't even get the lower jaw of a skull right!
Not content with making it look like some pre-1997 PC game art they just go and use the most basic, default font.
You'll never get anything started slacking off like that Mr Speckmann.
Another example of not only being dreadful ( I mean look at it!) but knocked even more for having a bog standard font. Plus, a dreadful album title.
I can wager that if this image, an angel being defeated and having its life force sucked out by a demon inside a church, had been hand drawn and coloured I would probably have thought it pretty cool. Sadly someone got to it with Photoshop first.
If ever a single image summed up the plight of the regular IllCon follower then this album cover is it.
I like Benediction. I don't like this artwork.
I still haven't been able to work out if this band are a joke or not. I could only get about 20 seconds into this video. This artwork and album title certainly suggest its all a joke.
The soft-porn/1997 "adult" PC game vibe was perfectly nailed on these two covers by everyone's favourite band we all claim not to like.
German engineering perfection. No.
Another example of quality band let down by PS1 quality artwork. it doesn't really fit.
You send something off to the printers, you send it at the right resolution don't you. I have been aware of this one for ages but I never knew the actual band name, I still don't.
Not often do tasteless album title/artwork concepts combine with bad Photoshop. But when they do the results are pretty special.
I can spot a circular saw, cyborg eyes, pink hair, robotic boobs and what looks like parts of a motorcycle. its not a magic eye image either.
Its like the cheap version of a Minotaur. A bemused armadillo. Doesn't really chase you round the maze. Just sits there looking confused.
Hypocrisy have quite a few probable entries lurking in that back catalogue of theirs. Funnily enough nearly most of it has been reissued in recent years with different artwork. I'd like to think that's because they looked back in horror at the below image.
To top it off is the one that got mentioned the most in past correspondence. Iron Maiden have done many great things for metal but this artwork certainly wasn't one of them. In my research I came across a story about how this was originally a mock up of the concept. The band saw it and decided to use it. Maybe save a bit of money. It may be true it may not be, it does sound like something you would say after many years of reflection and you slowly come to the realisation of how lame your album art is. I always like to think that Iron Maiden don't really need to go near computer technology. keep the two separate. Ed Hunter was bad enough.
Once again I will leave it up to you guys to let me know if there are any that deserve inclusion? In all fairness I spent quite a bit of time trawling the Nuclear Blast, Spinefarm and Roadrunner back catalogues and its almost another full post on some of the lame art those guys have hidden away.
“Dune. Desert Planet. Arrakis. WATER.” --Kyle McLaughlin, in Lynch’s Magnum Opus, Dune “Dune, where’s my car?” --Cobras
Many bands have tried and failed to capture the essence of Frank Herbert’s seminal, epic, orientalist space-opera, DUNE. For some, it might have been better if they had tried and died.
It would be well-nigh impossible to document every Dune-inspired track in the universe, so these are but a sampling of the many existing varieties of Dune music. They are grouped in brackets because, as Paul Atreides has observed, "the worst potential competition for any young organism can come from its own kind."
Techno Bracket Eon let loose in 1991 with a couple Dune-themed tracks, "The Spice Must Flow" and "Fear: The Mindkiller.""Fear: The Mindkiller"is a clear ancestor of the Mortal Kombat theme song, and samples (you guessed it!) the line "fear is the mind killer" a few thousand times. For good measure, Eon throws in a healthy dose of what sounds like the panting from Kraftwerk's "Tour De France." Because that's what Kraftwerk is awesome for-- panting.
Not shown: panting. Shown: nerding.
As bad as this may be, however, it’s still better than “German techno-pop ensemble from Münster Dune,” because by "techno pop" they mean Happy Hardcore. If you don’t know what that is, take a moment to thank the gods. You are either too young, too old, or were too under-a-rock-in-the-90s to have been exposed to this toxin. Preserve your innocence/health. If you must know, a representative track is "Can't Stop Raving,"but don't say I didn't warn you. Also, Dune’s youtube page would have you know that the group is “named after the 1984 science fiction movie directed by David Lynch.” Yup. Straight from the source.
Winner: no one. No one is a winner here.
Metal Bracket Another band of Krauts, Golem, attacked the Dune concept in their 1998 album “The 2nd Moon.” Check out the first track, The Wanderers. Featuring succinct riffage and abstract/subtly ESL lyrics (see e.g.: “Unlocking the gates of time, widening its bounds/Guarded by the maker ...facing desert ground”), Golem may actually have what it takes to make a Kwisatz Hadderach.
A further solid entry comes from Aussie rock band Buffalo (mentioned in a previous Cobras post), whose Dune Messiah takes us on a Pentagram-esque journey to Arrakis (and admit it, you always wanted to go to Arrakis with Pentagram).
Pretty sure it would be like this...
Blind Guardian also pays a visit to the Dune-iverse in Traveller in Time. The morning sun! Of Dune! Good old Blind Guardian. If you haven’t heard this song, it’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from Blind Guardian (i.e., it is awesome, unabashed nerdery). They can really play their balisets ifyouknowwhatimean.
Picard Knows.
Also, according to a reliable source (wikipedia, duh), Iron Maiden tried to name To Tame A Land “Dune,” but Frank Herbert was having none of it. Apparently the band was told that "Frank Herbert doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially bands like Iron Maiden." Good call on that one, F. Herb.
Frank Herbert hates you.
PS: Dreamtheater fans will be delighted to admit to you that Dreamtheater covered "To Tame A Land." Winner: Vote your choice in the comments. You are the dungeonmaster! You get to decide!
Blind Guardian
Buffalo
Golem
Iron Maiden
Dreamtheater
Prog/Jazz Bracket
More to F. Herb’s taste might be the smooth stylings of one Dave Matthews (!), a jazz keyboardist from Kentucky who hung out with James Brown and was apparently moved to gather together a bunch of other jazz players (Grover Washington, Eric Gale) and write several Dune-themed songs which readers should check out at their own risk. These are all on a 1977 album Dave Matthews titled, wait for it, “Dune.” The creativity here just does not end... or at least, not until the second side of the album, where Dave gives us NOT ONLY a disco-fied version of the Star Wars main theme (it was 1977, so Lucas didn’t quite know what he had on his hands), but also a limp cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity. On a related note, the only tolerable part of the latter song was sampled by MF (“Metal Face/Fingers”) Doom in Rap Snitch Knishes. You know. Like you do. Wait, what was I talking about? Ah yes. Another entry in the Dune prog bracket are French prog rockers Dün, about whom we have previously heard. An interesting compare and contrast exercise may be done by playing Dave Matthew's "Arrakis" and Dün's “Arrakis” back to back. Go on. Try it.
Winner:
Dave Matthews
Dün
Video Game Bracket Yes, evidently there were at least two about a million soundtracked Dune videogames. Kids these days. Don’t they know about books? Require a little effort on your part, make no be-be-be-be-beeps. Anywho. 1992 saw the release of not one, but TWO Dune videogames. The first was called “Dune” by Cryo Interactive, and it carried a soundtrack called "Dune: Spice Opera." It’s not so bad, from what I can tell. Also, at 1:55 of the track embedded below, "Sign of the Worm," you can see a sweet rendering of Shai-Hulud in 1992 graphics.
A competing video game company, Westwood Studios, released “Dune II” that same year; check out this sweet dialogue: “We were your pawns and Dune was your board.” The score is basically 8-bit plus. In 1998, Westwood Studios released “Dune: 2000” scored in part by professional video game composer Frank Klepaki. Good old Frank K. does a musical homage to/rip off of Toto’s score to Lynch’s Dune here on this track at about 3:22-32; otherwise, this is fairly unremarkable stuff.
Winner:
Dune: Spice Opera
Dune II
Klepaki
No one, again
Dune OST Bracket The Lynch Dune OST has been reported on here, but I thought I might add a few words. Two of those words are "Brian Eno." Two more words are “fuck yeah.”
but of course there is a fuckyeaheno.com
For the sake of completeness, here is the theme music from the Dune television series, composed by the dude who did the soundtrack to Final Destination V. If you have ever watched any sci-fi movie and heard some generic background symphonics, you’ve basically heard it. Speaking of orientalism, there’s also a Bonus New Age Track.
Winner:Toto/Eno OST. I’m sorry, this is just objective. Please send your complaints to James Madison.
Well, there you have it, friends. A smattering of the aural representations of the Dune-iverse. Please feel free to add on in the comments.
Behold Kris Mar, newest addition to the IllCon Team! Hail Kris Mar! May the rivers run red with the blood of your fallen foes, and may vampires tremble and expire at your feet just as they do under the mighty ax of Abe Lincoln! I am impressed with the nerdiness contained herein, please feel free to contribute further in the future. Sweet.
I was re-watching Herzog's Nosferatu (yes, AGAIN) just the other night, and, once again, I was completely bowled over not just by the dismal/beautiful cinematography and natural wonder of the whole goddamn thing, but by the creepy, hypnotic score contributed by everyone's favorite Teutonic prog-jockeys Popol Vuh. As usual, brief ponderance morphed into lingering obsession, and today, I present you with two more droning Vuh/Herzog collabos, namely 1972's Aguirre, The Wrath of God and 1982's Fitzcarraldo. If you are looking to be utterly bummed/mind-blown by either a movie or a movie soundtrack, I can heartily suggest each of these entries--both films are super crushing in a depressive yet visually stunning way, and the swirling Vuh tapestries which accompany them are their perfect audio marriage. Forget what you know about these two flicks. Forget Klaus Kinski completely losing his shit and driving everyone on set nuts with each successive role. Forget Herzog accidentally killing off, like, half of his crew with each movie he made from 1970-1985. Forget the fucking critical acclaim and forget the jungle diseases and forget that episode of Metalocalypse where they go all "Dethcarraldo" on the Amazonian natives. Just soak in the dark, bummer vibes Popol Vuh is laying down for you on this rainy Tuesday afternoon, and thank sweet, sweet Odin that Hollywood still hasn't started on Aguirre 2: Pizarro's Revenge (starring Tom Hanks!) just yet... Nor Fitzcarraldo, Shot In 3D! Some things are still sacred.
Iron Butterfly, mid 70's. Philip Taylor Kramer pictured at far left.
I doubt that anyone with any sort of passing knowledge of music history doesn't know who Iron Butterfly is ("In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda"?), so I'll hop right into the meat of this story without too much preamble. Let it simply be known that despite the fact that they produced only one hit song, Butterfly has existed in one form or another, on and off, for over 45 years now, experiencing probably double-to-triple as many lineup changes as IllCon stand-bys like Incantation or Napalm Death, all the while completely avoiding record industry trappings like "record sales" or "critical acclaim". They peaked in 1969, my friends, no secret there, but have managed to cling to life, like a horde of burnout zombies, ever since. Today's story is only tangentially related to the band itself, insofar as it revolves around a dude (Philip Taylor Kramer, pictured above right with the sick pink Warlock) who played bass, sang, and played keyboards for the band for only 3 years (1974-'77), appearing on only two critically-panned albums (Scorching Beauty and Sun And Steel, both released in 1975). Taylor's story is a zany and mysterious one, and one that I was completely unfamiliar with until last week's episode of IllCon Radio (thanks to caller "Floyd from Arkansas" for the tip).
Philip Taylor Kramer's life story is speckled with high weirdness and scientific anomaly, to the point that his stint in Iron Butterfly remains a mere footnote. After his departure from the group, he acquired a degree in aerospace engineering via night school, which he applied to numerous technological adventures in the following two decades. Kramer's abrupt "disappearance" (death? suicide? transdimensional ascension?) in 1995 remains a mystery to this day, surrounded by rumor, conspiracy, and nefarious connotation.
Band photo from another early Kramer project, Gold. Phil is again pictured at far left.
Right: Photo of a skull identified as belonging to Philip Taylor Kramer, discovered in Decker Canyon (near Malibu, CA) in 1999.
After obtaining the aforementioned degree, Phil moved on to several odd pursuits, among them helping the US Defense Department develop a guidance system for their infamous MX Missile series in the 1980's (NOT the Brazilian thrash metal band). He rode the Silicon Wave of the late 80's and early 90's in Southern California, proving himself a pioneer in the fields of both facial recognition systems (see also: BIOMETRICS) and fractal compression (I still don't 100% understand how fractal compression works, but you can start HERE and work your way out).
Eventually (and strangely), he went into business with Randy Jackson (left)--NOT the American Idol judge/former Journey bassist, but brother of our old pal Michael. They formed a company called Total Multimedia, Inc., wherein Phil served as an executive from 1990 until his cessation-to-be in 1995. The company specialized in compression techniques for CD-ROMs (special focus on the previously-mentioned "fractal" offshoot), and their greatest claim to fame was that they "developed the first video compression capable of producing full motion video from a single speed CD-ROM" in 1992. But Phil had other interests outside of business and CD-ROM compression. He had a burning desire to discredit the theories of one man, an evil tyrant whose ideas haunted Kramer to the bitter end:
Einstein: WHAT A DICK. Seriously. Let's skip all the biometrics/facial recognition creepiness for a second and get down to the proverbial "brass tacks". Ever heard of a little theory called "special relativity"? I bet you have.
Wikipedia: "(Special relativity) generalizes Galileo's principle of relativity—that all uniform motion is relative, and that there is no absolute and well-defined state of rest (no privileged reference frames)—from mechanics to all the laws of physics, including both the laws of mechanics and of electrodynamics, whatever they may be. Special relativity incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source. This theory has a wide range of consequences which have been experimentally verified, including counter-intuitive ones such as length contraction, time dilation and relativity of simultaneity, contradicting the classical notion that the duration of the time interval between two events is equal for all observers. (On the other hand, it introduces the space-time interval, which is invariant.) Combined with other laws of physics, the two postulates of special relativity predict the equivalence of mass and energy, as expressed in the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum. The predictions of special relativity agree well with Newtonian mechanics in their common realm of applicability, specifically in experiments in which all velocities are small compared with the speed of light. Special relativity reveals that c is not just the velocity of a certain phenomenon—namely the propagation of electromagnetic radiation (light)—but rather a fundamental feature of the way space and time are unified as spacetime. One of the consequences of the theory is that it is impossible for any particle that has rest mass to be accelerated to the speed of light."
Would YOU trust this guy?
HELL NO. Philip Taylor Kramer, missile-maker, fractal compressor, digital-face-recognizer, and stony-hippie-bass-noodler, wasn't having any of this shit. His life goal was to disprove the theory of special relativity, to develop a "warp drive" via quantum mechanics that would not only negate Einstein's "you can't go faster than the speed of light" bullshit, but also open up the gates of the cosmos. After all, wouldn't the cancellation of "E=mc2" indicate such a possibility? Kramer believed so, but his highly-coveted personal research never had a chance to fall upon the unsuspecting public.
Kramer began getting paranoid about his studies, thinking that perhaps his ambitions about space/time travel might be ruffling some feathers with his previous employers (i.e. The Man). Shit started getting weird. I'll let Wikipedia tell you the rest:
On February 12, 1995 he drove to Los Angeles International Airport to pick up an investor. He spent forty-five minutes at the airport but failed to meet the investor. Kramer did make a flurry of cell phone calls, including one to the police during which Kramer said, "I’m going to kill myself. And I want everyone to know O.J. Simpson is innocent. They did it." He was never heard from again. This led to a massive search, many news reports, and talk show segments including an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, America's Most Wanted, The Unexplained ("Strange Disappearances," first aired 5/7/2000), and Unsolved Mysteries some years later. An article in Skeptic reported numerous conspiracy theories about his death. On May 29, 1999, Kramer's Ford Aerostar minivan and skeletal remains were found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. Based on forensic evidence and Kramer's emergency call to the police, authorities ruled his death as a probable suicide committed on the day on which he was last heard.
Cool. Seems pretty tidy. No loose ends to tie up here, folks.
Seriously, if you've SEEN The Naked Gun, you know this guy's innocent.
According to Kramer's family, he had never displayed any sort of self-destructive/suicidal qualities and was, despite his well-founded paranoias, a pretty content and easy-going guy. After all, he was a millionaire.
According to evidence gathered at the scene, he died with 40 cents in his pocket.
Nothing to see here.
Here's the previously-mentioned Unsolved Mysteries segment in its entirety. Warning: the audio is utter shit (turn it up).
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