Unless you’ve somehow been able to bypass the Decibel PR freight train, you might have heard that I wrote a book called Into Everlasting Fire that chronicles the history of death metal’s most brutally loveable and loveably brutal bunch of dudes, Immolation (Get a copy here). Did you know that other people have written books that are either directly or tangentially related to the world of extreme music? Here’s a few from the pile on my nightstand.
Don’t Say Please – An Oral History of Die Kreuzen
By Sahan Jayasuriya
(Feral House)
Die Kreuzen were one of punk rock/hardcore/alternative music’s most unique, complex, innovative and forward thinking bands. These are traits that are not mirrored by Milwaukee-based Sahan Jayasuriya as he chronicles the complete history of one of underground music’s most unsung outfits. That’s not a slight on him as a writer or to say Don’t Say Please isn’t a compelling read or worthy of a couple nights spent with it in your lap. It’s just that the oral history style is regimented, has its restrictions and is not one that allows for a wealth of creative narration and outside of the principles telling their story. With the full participation of all four m
embers, plus friends, family, significant others, roadies, producers, industry folk, fans, musicians and musicians who are fans (including Thurston Moore, Steve Albini, Neko Case, Butch Vig and Lou Barlow), Jayasuriya gets deeper into the story of these most quizzical of musical alchemists than anyone ever has. The author’s voice and thoughts do make a more of an appearance towards the end of the book as he chimes in to discusses later discographic entries, how and why he thinks Die Kreuzen slipped through the cracks and the band’s overall impact and significance. There are handfuls of rare photos, some hilarious stories — the recounting of how they intrepidly managed and survived their first U.S. tour back in the days before the internet should be equally fascinating and horrifying to anyone who can’t leave the house without a navigation app showing them the way — a discouraging number of discouraging tales and a sense that Die Kreuzen were way more ahead of their time than the industry and much of their fanbase realized.
Ordering info here
GG Alien and the Mystery Meat
By Justin Pearson
(Three One G)
This one has been out for a number of months already, but stories rooted in timeless hilarity are timeless and hilarious, so giving this a nod now isn’t going to hurt anyone except those with un(der)developed senses of humour and people who believe the experience of culture is a binging race based in immediacy. If I’m not mistaken, this is Pearson’s fourth book and it tells the autobiographical tale of life in his 30’s when he took a job as a bar back in a San Diego gay bar for some sense of financial regularity and stability between stints on the road, primarily with the Locust, but also with the many other projects he’s played in over the years. Like his other books — particularly From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry — it’s further documentation of the insanity that has been Pearson’s life. In between the tales of bar fly characters, being perpetually hit on as a straight dude surrounded by drunk and horny gay dudes, Nazi fetishist patrons, Pride parties and drag nights, GG Alien and the Mystery Meat ultimately lies at the intersection of art and capitalism. A further example of people striving to do what they want to do creatively versus the necessity of needing official pieces of green paper to pay the bills; needing the time off to fill one’s creative cup versus doing a job that fills someone else’s wallet. All in all, this job floated him through the Locust’s hey day, so as much as he spends time ragging on what was probably a bizarre near-decade of marginal employment and being goosed by muscular gym rats in jockstraps, I, for one, am thankful for this gig and that it however tangentially contributed to the existence of Plague Soundscapes, Safety Second, Body Last and New Erections. And judging by the vast amounts of photographic evidence included — and the fact he got a highly entertaining book out of the experience — it looks like he had a good time some of the time.
Ordering info here
Death — The Antidote to Misery
By Mats E. Eriksson
(PMET Publishing)
Mats E. Eriksson is a professor of palaeontology at Lund University in Lund, Sweden. He’s also a metalhead and horror obsessive who has been described as “a scientist with the soul of a musician.” As well, he enjoys sitting in front of glowing computer screens and writing, combining his three life interests with a dry and wry sense of humour into crafty, otherworldly short stories. Death is his second book and according to one of the hype-man quotes on the back cover it is “Possibly the best book (I’ve) ever (written).” That said quote comes from the author himself hints at the sarcastic, self-deprecating and absurdist humour in the 400+ pages to follow. What the reader also needs to know going into this book is that Erikisson and his palaeontologist buddies have a long track record of naming fossil and organism finds after their favourite bands and musicians (true story; he’s sent me actual academic journals with the proof) and what each chapter of Death does is recount fictional stories of Erikisson gallivanting around the world, and the underworld, to interview living and dead (and some combination of the both) musicians about the honour bestowed upon them by the scientific community. It’s then when things go wrong(-ish) and get (very) ridiculous. For example, in one scenario Tony Iommi and John McEntee (a guy named John McEntee who looks like Incantation’s John McEntee, but who actually isn’t John McEntee) are partners in a record label and Eriksson is an invited guest to their compound, where he can found drinking “sweet leaf tea” around the unveiling of an original work by famed cover artist Joe Petagno while arguing about a 300 million year old sea beast named after Black Sabbath. In another chapter, Eriksson visits Rotting Christ’s Tolis brothers who live in a dug out cave in the Acropolis where original Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin remains alive wandering the halls in fits of boredom. Of course, he only speaks with his ‘v’s replacing his ‘u’s because of how ‘trve cvlt’ he is. If you’re into reading about worlds in which Michael Jackson is really the zombie in the “Thriller” video, is a huge fan of Immolation’s Bob Vigna, has hired the Runaways to be his makeup artists (they do ‘regular face’ makeup over his actual zombified features, then zombie makeup over the normal makeup to hide the fact he’s actually a zombie) and his pet monkey Bubbles is actually Ted Nugent, then have at it. Some of it is down right, laugh out loud hilarious. Other parts are so obtusely preposterous that I began wondering about Eriksson’s psilocybin consumption and/or past psychiatric diagnoses. The book is loaded with awesome artwork commissions of the morphing creatures depicted in the fantastical tales by a host of recognisable names from the metal art world: Petagno, Pär Olofsson, Dan Seagrave, Dan Lerner and Mark Riddick. This weighty tome may exist on another plain of reality, but it simultaneously delivers a tutorial on the topic of millions and billions year old species and the historical highlights of metal through the authors eyes. There’s a quote in one of the stories that sums up Death quite nicely: “If you humans would just open up your neurological pathways better and stop being so fucking self-absorbed, you will realise that there are lots of non-human creatures on this planet with the ability to speak.” And a good number of them are speaking in the pages of Death. It’s for you to decide what’s real and what’s not while shaking your laughing head in disbelief.
Ordering info here
xXxYoungxNunsxXx
By Joey Molinaro
(Self-Released)
You might recognize Joey Molinaro as the Pittsburgh-based musician who busts out grind and black metal on violin, particularly his cover of Discordance Axis’ The Inalienable Dreamless album from 2011. Molinaro is also a three time author with his third being xXxYoungxNunsxXx a book set in dystopian, post-apocalyptic, zombie-riddled wasteland America where the crash of society was caused by the government and military trying to wipe out iPhone addiction. During a time of scavenging for supplies and survival, an Ohio-based metallic hardcore band called Young Nuns find Britney Spears living at a secret celebrity rehab clinic. They, of course, do the first thing any metallic hardcore band who stumbled across Britney Spears in a secret celebrity rehab centre would do: draft her in as their band’s new lead singer, despite her never heard (let alone heard of) Botch, Hatebreed, Kylesa, Killswitch Engage or Metallica. From there, they decide to tour across what remains of the country with L.A., and Britney rescuing her kids from ex-husband Kevin Federline, in their sights. Along the way, they play hastily organised shows for surviving compounds loaded with the cast of characters you’d expect to be hanging on to power and existence in the midst of societal collapse. They push and test boundaries, kill a bunch of motherfuckers and find fleeting moments of love and lust. The story, as you’ve probably gathered, is pretty out there which allows for a lot of licence and liberty to be taken with the situation and story line. The book requires the reader’s imagination to paint a picture upon picture, though even then it can be difficult to follow what’s going on and who’s saying and doing what. But where the dialogue exchanges on paper can seem scattered and meandering, where Molinaro excels is in his descriptions (of weaponry, the Young Nuns’ van, the process of siphoning gas), the scene at the band’s makeshift shows, and especially their music, which is oddly thorough and specific considering this is fictional band is playing fictional music in fictional settings. A wade through a well-worn genre aside, it’s worth the price alone to read about the how author’s mind sees a former pop icon (and still ridiculously popular star despite a zombie apocalypse) come into her own as a extreme music front woman while humanity crumbles and her new band mates balance doing all the same dumb shit dumb guys in bands do while juggling a spartan existence and having to mass exterminate zombies to keep going.
Ordering info here
