Welcome to the first official day of Winter, my friends! To celebrate, we here at Illogical Contraption are proud to debut our first ever musical COMPILATION (don't call it a fucking "mixtape", hipster), comprised of songs about snow, ice, freezing, and hoary lands of frostbound lore. Heck, there's even a couple Christmas songs in there, and they won't even make you feel like a fucking pussy!
Track listing:
1) Basil Poledouris - Winter (Interlude from Red Dawn) 2) Rob Halford - Get Into The Spirit (from his Christmas album Winter Songs, released 2009) 3) Captain Beyond - Frozen Over 4) Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Thawing Out 5) Immortal - Cryptic Winterstorms 6) Anvil - Blood On The Ice 7) Impaled Northern Moonforest - Lustfully Worshipping The Inverted Moongoat While Skiing Down The Inverted Necromountain Of Necrodeathmortum 8) Run DMC - Christmas In Hollis 9) Judas Priest - Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat/Cheater 10) 3 Inches of Blood - Balls of Ice 11) Black Sabbath - Snowblind 12) Impaled Northern Moonforest - Masturbating On The Unholy Inverted Tracks Of The Grim And Frostbitten Necrobobsledders 13) Sodom - Nuclear Winter 14) King Diamond - No Presents For Christmas 15) Operation Ivy - Freeze Up 16) Anaal Nathrakh - Ice Blasting Storm Winds 17) Thor - Thunder On The Tundra 18) Blood Reaping - Freezing Slaughter 19) Metallica - Trapped Under Ice 20) Snow - Informer (from the album 12 Inches of Snow)
PS: Indulge the Pretentious Author for a moment -- These songs are meant to represent a semi-coherent linear idea, and are best heard in this particular order. The files have been re-numbered accordingly, so after you download, just drop the whole file into its own playlist. Transfer that playlist to your iPod (or portable mp3 player of choice), and enjoy these songs in the exact way God (aka Cobras) intended. And for you lovers of Old Media, this compilation clocks in at just under 1 hour and 19 minutes, the perfect length to be transferred onto a Compact Discus!
Remember back on I.C.'s one year anniversary, when I promised to end all ongoing series on this site, including the dreaded 'Saturday Morning Double Feature'? Well, I keep my promises. Enjoy today's TRIPLE FEATURE...
Illogical Contraption has shown a reprehensible amount of neglect for the realm of hip-hop in the past, and the situation needs to be rectified. Whether it be through sheer accidental neglect or perhaps an underlying sense of subliminal racial shame (right), rap's presence on this blog has been minimal. Which is strange. I like hip-hop, and have been listening to it more and more often lately (ya feel me, Peter?). I even kinda dig the new Jay-Z album. WTF? The last time I posted about rap, it was a Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon/Dr. Dooom double feature. Let's start there and see where today's post takes us...
KOOL KEITH - SEX STYLE (1997)
Kool Keith is and always will be one of my favorite rappers. Sure, his live shows are inconsistent at best, and his discography is spotty and full of aliases, name changes, and uncredited appearances. But it's all part of the Keith Mystique. Sex Style was the second album he put out after his departure from the Ultramegnetic MC's (the superb Dr. Octagonecologyst was his first). I'm no big fan of sex raps, but for some reason, when they're delivered by Kool Keith, they're far from erotic. Packed with equal parts obtuse humor, lyrical mysticism, and a clumsy tough-guy swagger, Sex Style is more comedic outsider art than pornocore, and is an essential element in the Kool Keith legacy.
KUTMASTA KURT feat. KOOL KEITH & MOTION MAN - MASTERS OF ILLUSION (2001)
Longtime I.C. reader and Illogical Bro Steven uploaded this amazing disc for me after the last Kool Keith post, and I thank him gratefully. I had somehow managed to remain ignorant of its existence for the last 8 years, and despite its horrible cover art and early-00's "trip-hop" trappings, it remains a completely solid and complex bit of psychedelic effluvia. Technically billed as a Kutmasta Kurt release, Keith and Motion Man are nonetheless featured on every track, and everyone carries their weight equally. The term "trip-hop" itself probably brings to mind nausea-inducing images of suburban college kids wearing backpacks and sideways ballcaps for lots of you, and with good reason. But a musical artist or genre can't be blamed for their fans. Swallow your pride, man up and check out Masters of Illusion. And don't be afraid to "trip out" on it a little bit.
And while we're on the subject of GOOD "trip-hop" getting a bad "rap"...
BUSDRIVER - TEMPORARY FOREVER (2002)
Busdriver combines the inside-out, upside-down fractalizations of a good acid trip with the unsettling speed and confusion of an 8-ball to the head. He is probably best known for the song "Imaginary Places" that he contributed to Tony Hawk 3, but he is far more than a one-hit wonder. Though he's been rapping for nearly two decades, he has only been releasing albums under the Busdriver moniker since 1999, while tossing off the occasional collaboration single or album in the process. I really can't do much to decribe this guy's hyperspeed, spaced-out sound, so if you've never heard him, take a minute to check out the video below. I imagine this sort of stuff might be conducive when experiencing prolonged exposure to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or other psychoactive substances, if you're into that sort of thing.
I was in the supermarket the other day and while standing in line I noticed a story in the National Enquirer or something like that which claimed that Tiger Woods is suicidal.
Oh, that's right. It was in The Globe. My bad.
Anyway, I know this might sound insensitive, but I think it would be funny if Tiger Woods killed himself. Am I the only one? I'm not trying to be a dick, but when I saw that headline I started giggling. I don't giggle very often, but the idea of Tiger offing himself just struck me as, well, hilarious. Especially if it was an "accident".
This has nothing to do with my post, or maybe what follows has nothing to do with this post. Doesn't matter I suppose.
Norwegian Redneck Metal
Burning Rubber was (is?) from Norway. The band formed in the late 1990's, but they aren't black metal. They sound like Motorhead, actually. A lot like Motorhead. And their slogan was "Redneckker Than You". I met their bassist, Dimmit, in New York in 2002. He showed me 'interesting' pictures of his girlfriend and I promised to arrange a few shows for his band in the midwest. It turned out to be a disaster for me, but the band seemed to have fun and they gave me a free t-shirt, so it wasn't all bad. This guy, however, was an asshole...
Burning Rubber didn't release much, to my knowlege, but here is their demo and their first album Trailer Trash. If you like Motorhead or Turbonegro you might dig this.
"Greetings. I am a time traveler from the year 2036."
Thus began another chapter in the story of John Titor (aka "Timetravel_0"), one of the strangest and most polarizing figures in the history of the internet. Perhaps you remember my brief mention of John Titor in the Art Bell post I wrote last week. Since then, I've devoted quite a bit of time to researching the man himself, and the results have been, in a word, baffling. John's story started in 1998, when he contacted Bell via fax claiming to be a visitor from the year 2036. Throughout 2000 and 2001, he began posting on internet message boards, quickly gathering a large following of both believers and debunkers. John claimed that a great Civil War had broken out between urban and rural areas of the United States in 2015, and that he was enlisted with the "Fighting Diamondbacks" (see military insignia, above right) in Florida before his trip into the past. He also claimed he was returning to 2036 in March '01, and at that point disappeared from the internet completely.
The reason for Titor's travels through time is a strange one. According to his story, he had to visit the year 1975 to retrieve an obscure portable computer (an IBM 5100, shown at left), which he needed to debug a series of computer programs in 2036 (a reference to the UNIX 2038 timeout problem). After procuring said computer, he stopped in on 1998-2001 to visit his parents and a younger version of himself. As weird as it sounds, research has shown that the IBM 5100 was, in fact, the only computer with the built-in capability to avoid this problem, and the debate as to whether Titor knew this as a result of obscure studies or from actual future experiences remains open. But this is only one in many strange paradoxes in the story of John Titor.
This intro to a series of videocasts on Titor helps sum it all up:
Part of what is so compelling about Titor's story was his extensive knowledge of physics and detail with which he described his time travel device. He would debate at length about the nature of space and time with skeptics, addressing and explaining such concepts as the "grandfather paradox" and the Everett-Graham-Wheeler or "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics. According to Titor, a time travel device had six requirements to function properly, which were as follows:
1) Two magnetic housing units for the dual micro singularities 2) An electron injection manifold to alter mass and gravity micro singularities 3) A cooling and X-ray venting system 4) Gravity sensors, or a variable gravity lock 5) Four main cesium clocks 6) Three main computer units
Eventually, he even provided copies of instruction manuals and photographs, a few of which are shown below.
Above: Schematics for the GE C204 'Army Model' Time Travel Device Below: Diagram for the C204's Tipler Sinusoid Field, used to house singularities.
John Titor's posts on the Art Bell Forum (he had previously posted as "Timetravel_0" on other message boards) quickly made him an underground star on both the internet and AM radio. He was an engaging and interesting writer, and spent months answering questions about the future, from both his supporters and the haters. His tales of the upcoming nuclear wars and domestic battles within the U.S. grew in both scale and detail, and soon his life story began taking on a more definite shape. John Titor became less a nebulous idea and more a concrete, scientific lineage incorporating mechanics, backstory, and photographic documentation. But he never "went public".
Before he disappeared from the internet altogether in March 2001, Titor made several predictions about the near future. Although hit-and-miss at best, some of them proved to be eerily close to reality, from his predictions about Mad Cow disease to his statements about CERN and the great strides they would make in quantum technology. He also claimed that the Olympics would cease in 2004 (note unrest at the Beijing Olympics in 2008) and that the United States would elect a "Lincoln-like" president... in 2004.
More weirdness:
Listen to an 8-part interview with johntitor.com editor Oliver Williams on Coast To Coast With George Noory here.
If you've got an extra $200 laying around, get a copy of John Titor: A Time Traveller's Tale (reportedly published by Titor's mother) here. Or you can just read all the same stuff in the book at johntitor.com.
And now, we travel onward to the odd phenomena known as "Revelation 13" of The Bible code. "The Bible Code" refers to a certain way of reading the Bible, usually the King James Version, in which all text is condensed together so that conspiracy nuts can play crosswords with it. In doing so, they have found everything from Nostradomus references to predictions of atomic holocaust. Pioneer of this practice and original Bible Code author Michael Drosnin used his techniques to prophesy the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, lending credence to the idea but still keeping it far from the realm of science fact. Unsurprisingly, practitioners of the Bible Code have found connections to John Titor in their work. The Titor-Bible Code connection is known as "Revelation 13".
For example, the section shown above is text (or a "matrix") from 2 Chronicles 15:8-22:7, in which the phrase "JTITOR" can be found angled, crosswords-style, through its center. In addition to "JTITOR", we also find the phrases "IN TIME", "PROPHECY", "ALL THE HOST OF HEAVENS", "I RETURN IN PEACE", "THE WATCHTOWER IN THE WILDERNESS", "AND DEPARTED", and finally, "IN THE MOUTH OF THESE THY PROPHETS".
Now take Psalms 45:2-92:14:
In this particular matrix, we have the requisite "JTITOR", along with "IN TIME", "FUSION" (a possible Time Travel power source), "HE WILL BE OUR GUIDE", and the words "LIGHT", "WAR", "FOREVER", and "WONDERS". Creepy.
The earlier-linked "Revelation 13" web page contains 7 of these matrices, all of them containing "JTITOR" and a host of prophetic phrases.
Biblical proof that John Titor was a seer? Not neccessarily. Using Revelation 13, we also find the terms "JTITOR" and "IS A FAKE" in Psalms 15:3 - Jeremiah 24:3 and "JTITOR" + "CONMAN" in 2 Kings 5:10 - 1 Chronicles 16:40.
So YOU make the call. Was John Titor merely a well-educated prankster pulling off a particularly epic hoax on a sizeable group of conspiracy nuts and gullible basement-dwellers? Or is it possible that he was actually a visitor from several decades in the future? As always, it's easy to debunk the wild claims we find on the internet. But suspend your disbelief for a minute. Things can be a lot more fun that way.
You can read John Titor's original postings on the Anomalies Network here.
Crypticus is the death metal alter-ego of one Patrick Bruss, resident of Denver, Colorado, teller of tales, and purveyor of sick riffs and arcane lore. This mostly one-man project (drums are often handled by a sequencer, but in the case of Mad! were handled by one C. Kumpe) displays a certain lo-fi charm and penchant for thrashy riffing, but what really gets me are both the inherent fascination with the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the Hammer horror-esque vibe present throughout this recording. Using a combination of tinny organ intros, late night horror-movie samples of curious dialogue, and superbly gurgly vocals, Bruss creates more creepy atmosphere than most major label releases ever could, drenching this particular album in equal parts camp and br00tality. Utmost respect to a guy who can incorporate the whole Lovecraft mythos so deftly into his work, and even name drop HIMSELF in the process (see track 1, "Strange Facts In The Case of P.E. Bruss").
Did I mention that CRETACEOUS is playing with THE FUCKING MENTORS at Burnt Ramen in Richmond this Saturday? I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this particular course of events, but it should be... interesting?... if nothing else. Extra points to the promoter who ALMOST spelled our name correctly on the flyer:
Excellent 70s rock from Luxembourg. Apparently only 200 copies of this album were ever pressed, which is a shame, considering how good it is. It would be worth downloading for the wild riffs and broken English vocals alone, but there's an energy captured on this album that puts Cool Feet into a higher class altogether. I've been playing the shit out of it for days. I just can't get enough. HIGHLY FUCKING RECOMMENDED.
Track Listing: 1. Burning Desire 2. Over The Highway 3. The Man From Marakesh 4. Hello Lucy 5. In The City 6. The Fool 7. Now I Know I Am Free 8. Alone In Your Cage
Above: Harken, ninjas! Gather close and adore Insane Clown Jesus!
Okay, I hate to admit this, but I'm done making fun of Juggalos. It's just too fucking easy. It's even easier than making fun of black metal (or over-intellectualizing it, if you're a Williamsburg hipster), and making fun of black metal is REALLY easy. But before I throw in the proverbial towel on ICP ridicule, I've got to share one last tidbit with you guys, quite possibly the greatest Juggalo-related internet gem ever discovered. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you JuggaloFaith.com, a website that transforms the phrase "Jesus Christ, Juggalos?! JUGGALOS?!?! Jesus Christ." to "Jesus Christ, Juggalos. Juggalos, Jesus Christ." JuggaloFaith is your one-stop shop for Christian Juggalo needs, whether it be a visit to their own social networking site Ninja Nation or a spin on their Psycho Slot Machine. I also highly recommend a trip to the 'Hidden Truths' section of the page, where JuggaloFaith will point out all of the secret Christian messages hidden in the music and artwork of ICP and their related acts.
Above: A somber Juggalo genuflects before the annual Gathering.
Believe it or not, JuggaloFaith.com isn't the most popular website in the world (their hit counter just passed 10,000), but the site's creator Rev. B-Lotus has a message "To all the haters and non believers who post on our message board and guest book":
"Fuck the devil, fuck that shit, we believe in life legit, ain't you gettin' what we say, why you throw your soul away??"
Jesus has your back, ninjas. He walked on Faygo and fed the entire Gathering of the Juggalos with a single fish and loaf of bread. God himself has a message for you, too. He gave you His only son and created Heaven and all the Earth, but on the eighth day, God said "Thou shalt be DOWN WITH THE CLOWN!!!"
Also: Australian scientists report the first ever observation of an invertebrate using tools, in the form of the Indonesian veined octopus. It seems that this particular cephalopod uses chunks of coconut shell as shelter, putting it in a "tool-using" class usually reserved only for higher mammals.
All in all, a good day for intelligent life everywhere.
Re: Del Tigre - Stony/Obscure Self-Titled Releases From The 70's
That's right, Erik, two can play at this game. Armageddon was the super-stony mid-70's project of Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf (right). And while other former Yardbirds like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck were fading away into total obscurity, harnessed to go-nowhere musical projects that no one has ever heard of, Relf was kicking out the jams with the volume at 11 in 1975, forming the Armageddon machine with former members of Captain Beyond and Steamhammer. Armageddon only played a handful of shows before Relf's untimely death by electrocution in 1976, leaving this album as his first and last work with the band, as well as the final chapter of his legacy.
Quite a bit of this disc meanders off into some psychedelic/acoustic hippie shit that I can't really get behind (as do most rock and roll albums from this era), but all is made well by the opening track, an eight-and-a-half minute, 16th-note guitarmageddon called "Buzzard" (see video). This album is the soundtrack to your life if your life is drinking Billy Beer with a bunch of your bros in the parking lot of a burger joint, checking out the new exhaust system Steve installed in his Camaro right after railing blow off of his teenage girlfriend's tits in back of your custom van at the roller rink. Or something.
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