Illogical Contraption Radio has a new home, Sundays 6-8pm PST on Radio Valencia! This means we’ll be broadcasting LIVE on TERRESTRIAL radio (87.9 FM in San Francisco), as well as streaming live and podcasting! Archives will now be kept on our Radio Valencia page in ADDITION to here on IllCon Classic, but fear not, if you’re already subscribed via iTunes, that feed will remain active as well. We have tons of crazy guests and new features lined up, so prepare to have your face melted!
ALSO: BIG APOCRYPHON NEWS COMING SOON, AS WELL AS UPDATES REGARDING THE FUTURE OF "ILLCON CLASSIC"...
Split album (+ vinyl!) and new shirts on the way soon! Catch updates via Apocryphon's Facebook page...
PS: ILLOGICAL CONTRAPTION IS NOT DEAD. Complete re-design and re-launch coming in the very near future! Any and all brogrammers, artists, writers, or other assorted freaks looking to toil under the IllCon banner for little or no reward (especially brogrammers) write to Cobras at illogicalcontraption(at)yahoo(dot)com. ALL I ASK IS THAT YOU OBEY ME AND I WILL BE YOUR SLAVE.
I've written a few pieces on my
admiration for various Central and South American metal bands and the
manner in which they could absorb the severity of their circumstances
into their music, transmuting it into an extremity paralleled by few
other artists before or since. Bands like Parabellum, Herpes, and
Hadez all churned out some of the most vicious, atonal, bomb-blast
anti-music ever commited to tape but I would hate to imply that all
the brutality of authoritarian regimes, drug-fuled corruption, and
some of the bloodier moments of Cold War spillover necessarily forced
musicians into the realms of quasi-listenable discordance. There
were antecedents, unique for their time and place but not really
remembered for the boundary pushing of their harsher followers.
V8 is one such band. They're widely
believed to be Argentina's first metal band and it's not hard to pick
out what they were attempting. Their first album, 1983's Luchando
Por El Metal (Fighting
For Metal – for those unversed
in Spanish) almost seems a sort of missing link between late NWOBHM
and early speed metal, but whereas the former genre was comprised of
bands who tended to release a killer EP or two and then either fall
apart or make an album consisting mainly of shitty filler material
and the latter focused more on technical ability and falsetto vocals,
Luchando Por El Metal is
rock solid and stocked front to back with well-written catchy tunes,
almost punk-ish in their rawness, not a million miles removed from a
rougher Kill 'Em All (which
was released four months later).
My
Spanish is a bit rusty, but from what I can tell V8's hatred of both
society and hippies was surpassed only by their devotion to heavy
metal (the introduction to “Parcas Sangrientas” gives way to the
heavily accented shout of “HEAVY MET-AL!” in case there was any
question or doubt where their alliegences lay). And it may be easy
to have a laugh at the single-mindedness of it all except for two
things: first, in 1979 Argentina was still a military dictatorship
that had withstood decades of de facto civil
war, withV8 forming during the most repressive era of that regime's
rule, a time when rock music was banned and anybody performing it did
so at their own peril – imprisonment and forced disappearances were
the order of the day – making the act of being in a metal band one
requiring a level of bravery most musicians would have trouble
mustering; and second, the album fucking rules. It's a total ripper,
a rager, a torpedo bonzer, and ass-pounder of the highest order.
Anybody who claims to like awesome things and doesn't like this needs
to take a good, long look at themselves in the mirror and try to
figure out where their head's at.
V8 may
have had some analogs in the Motörheads and Judas Priests of the
world, but to say their music wasn't new or different not only isn't
really the point, but it lays bare the cultural privelege at the
heart of being able to denigrate the relevance of something because
it's reminiscent of something else. V8 was
new and different, at least in relation to their corner of the world,
and their popularity there attests to the vacuum that they filled for
the generation of people who needed something as bracing, cathartic,
and anarchic as metal to be able to come to terms with a social
structure so rigorously and vehemently opposed to the freer
expressions of the human spirit. Also it fucking rules.
For nearly 40 years, Judy Garland was the icon of the Hollywood life and classed as one of the greatest entertainers of her generation. She was performing on stage and in movies from a very young age and at 16 she brought The Wizard Of Oz to life on the big screen. She followed this with many movies and a staggering amount of concert appearances that broke box office records.
Behind the scenes it was a different story. From an early age, MGM Studios had been plying its young actors with ampthetamines and barbiturates to keep them going through the back to back filming schedules required to keep new movies being released. This went hand in hand with the glitzy lifestyle and constant rotation of work/party/premiere/work that made up the backbone of Hollywood.
Despite a hectic work schedule and much critical acclaim, Judy Garland's personnel life was a shambles. By the early sixties, five marriages and a life long battle with alcohol and drug abuse had taken its toll on her. In a bid to get her back into the public's eye it was decided she would write an autobiography. Enter her agent, Irving "Swifty" Lazar. He supplied the ailing star with a reel to reel tape recorder and got her to use it as a way to get the book started as well as maybe come to terms with her problems.
What follows has become known as the "Judy Speaks" tapes. Still mainlining pills and a ludicrous amount of gin, she sobs and screams at ex-husbands, film executives, her complete distrust of the recording device and pretty much everyone who she believes led her to this point in life.
Bear in mind that its pretty heavy going at times. Her booze soaked rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is pretty heavy. As legend goes, these tapes got confiscated after her death in 1969 and ended up locked away in a publicist's vault before getting a public release some years ago. Judy's family actually petitioned for them to be denied a release but the court ruled otherwise.
Its pretty heavy going stuff at times. Some brief moments of cohesion and happiness are soon washed away by Judy's gin soaked anger and vitriol. Be warned.
Forget all the Ron Paul Pokemon Bronies on Reddit. Forget the libertarian furries and Dr. Who fandoms on 4Chan. Forget Parks and Rec GIFs and seapunk and soft grunge. The REAL internet lives at one place and one place ONLY. HERE.
Illcon Radio is BACK, tonight 10pm-midnight PST. (415) 829-2980 . COLD CANS WILL BE CRUSHED!
That's right, gang. The image you see above is not just a clever Photoshop creation--Illogical Contraption "Death To False Radio" T-shirts are NOW AVAILABLE (for only $12, plus shipping!) via our good pals over at Hide The Bodies Press (go "like" them on Facebook while you're at it). I think we can all agree that this is a pretty fucking sick design, so save up your fuckin' paper-route money, then head over HERE to buy one. HUGE thanks to Paul and the gang at HTB for making this happen, we will soon grow incredibly wealthy off the hard-earned cash of these idiotic rubes our dear readers and hopefully leave our "internet" jobs forever. God willing.
IN OTHER NEWS: APOCRYPHON MINI-TOUR COMING UP AT THE END OF THE MONTH!
THURSDAY, NOV 29 @ THE COLONY, SACRAMENTO, CA with:
IN OTHER NEWS: IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT, AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS...
That's right, bitches! IllCon Radio is back, 10pm-midnight, with a special appearance by everyone's favorite sex-rapper, BLOWFLY! Shit is bound to get weird, as we talk dead Burners, half-speed Rings of Saturn, breakfast food, and explore the personal vendetta between myself and host/ungrateful butthole CORY. You know where to go.
And hey, give us a call, live on the air. 415-829-2980.
I shouldn't have to fill you in on the whole deal with Mad Max. Its a given that its awesome. George Miller's 1979, dystopic classic was burned into my eyeballs at a very young age and from that moment I was obsessed with it.
I'm not going to wax lyrical and blather on about how awesome nearly every aspect of this movie is, if your reading this then you already know. This post deals with the superbly dramatic orchestral score courtesy of Brian May.
First off, its not "that" Brian May, its the Australian Brian May. Well known in his native country for his countless work in TV and film ( he composed the Countdown theme) he is mainly known here at Nothing Left Inside Towers as the musical genius behind Mad Max and its sequel The Road Warrior as well as classics like Road Games, Turkey Shoot and Dr Giggles.
Secondly, this is certainly not driving music. Unless you are on a single minded mission of revenge then I wouldn't advise driving any distance with this blasting. A mistake I have made on many an occasion.
Mr May's compositions most certainly add a lot to the movie. The combination of sharp bursts of discordant noise and slow rumbling build ups pick out at many of the most stand out scenes. Think of every time the Interceptor comes into shot, they always have a sinister burst of brass instrumentation, every time any of the Toecutter gang get nasty Brain May stabs the mood with a sharp, nasty screech of cello. Even something as small as the opening shots of the Halls Of Justice and the highway with the skull and warning signs is given such brooding menace by the triumphant but evil work of this Australian genius. Please enjoy.
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