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Slayer Mag Diaries: Quorthorn referred to Hellhammer as Wimphammer


Dead1

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Reading old interviews in the Slayer Mag Diaries.  These came out in late 1980s.  Lots of cool stuff ala early Bathory, Mayhem, Slayer, Destruction all at their peak as well as lots of forgotten stuff.

One of the funniest things is how much Quorthorn sledged the crap out of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost.  He literally referred to Hellhammer as Wimphammer. Also in one sentence Quorthorn says he can't stand Venom and then he immediately states Black Metal LP is good.

 

Some other observations:

- The terms death, thrash and thraschcore were used interchangeably even as late as 1987-88.  The only "genre" was black metal which implied use of satanic lyrics.  So thrash act Sabbat were  actually regarded as black metal.

-1980s metal guys were really, really homophobic.  Lots of nasty homophobic slurs some of which are really quite overt and not tongue in cheek or anything.

- To get into extreme scene was a matter of writing letters to like minded metallers courtesy of Metal Forces pen pal page!  There was no way in hell you were going to hear an extreme metal demo without plugging into the letter writing scene.  People today don't realise how easy it really is.

The letters literally opened doors - so you might be in touch with someone in another country which meant if your bed went to that country they'd have a bed!

 

The art is great and it's an awesome time capsule into the 1980s extreme metal scene when it was a small number of people creating the start of a global music phenomenon.

 

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1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

The Venom/Slayer tours must have been hell. We did some stupid shit when we were on the road but nothing compared to some of the shit that's been reported between Venom and Slayer. Of course how true any of it actually is remains to be seen.

There is an interview with Slayer from that time where the Slayer guys complain about the annoying stuff Venom were doing.  They didn't go into details though.

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Slayer 1985 Tour Manager on Venom During Combat Tour, "They were Fuckin Terrible" Tom Araya/Cronos Fight

Doug talks about the legendary Cronos / Tom Araya fight, The Ultimate Revenge/Combat Tour w/ Venom, Slayer, Exodus, Voivod, Metallica, and taking Venom to Disneyland. It's a really cool piece of old school thrash history.

 

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qourthon was based

On 9/12/2022 at 10:59 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Slayer 1985 Tour Manager on Venom During Combat Tour, "They were Fuckin Terrible" Tom Araya/Cronos Fight

Doug talks about the legendary Cronos / Tom Araya fight, The Ultimate Revenge/Combat Tour w/ Venom, Slayer, Exodus, Voivod, Metallica, and taking Venom to Disneyland. It's a really cool piece of old school thrash history.

 

i heard tom was an obnoxious drunk and that's why cronos socked him

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  • 2 weeks later...

Continuing with the Slayer Mag diaries:

 

So got up to late 1980s  and already the author, Metalion, is talking about oversaturation and clones.  And most of these bands were putting out 3-5 track demos on cassettes, not full fledged LPs.

The terminology starts getting more solid from both author and interviewees - death and grind now seem better defined and are no longer lumped in with thrash.   Thrash increasingly becoming a dirty word - bands talking about not wanting to be like Metallica (we're talking AJFA era) or Testament.

You can also tell there's a rift between hardcore and metal though the grind guys are clearly closing the gap.  Oh and bands assumed as hardcore bands reveal very much their metal roots and influences eg Bill Steer of Carcass loving NWOBHM (something we know today). 

Fascinatingly enough some references to the biggest elitists of the day being crossover thrash fans...which I also remember Dan Liker talking about in an interview about Nuclear Assault many years ago.

 

And finally, a fact that's overlooked these days but Master was really a pioneer and a major influence on a lot of bands.  Though on the surface Master really didn't do anything until 1990, they actually recorded an album in 1985 which wasn't released at the time but was "leaked" to the underground and became quite a hit with the extreme metal crowd.

 

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3 hours ago, Dead1 said:

And finally, a fact that's overlooked these days but Master was really a pioneer and a major influence on a lot of bands.  Though on the surface Master really didn't do anything until 1990, they actually recorded an album in 1985 which wasn't released at the time but was "leaked" to the underground and became quite a hit with the extreme metal crowd.

Active from 1984 to 1985, Fuckin' Death represented one of death metal's earliest recordings. Death Strike disbanded after 1985's Fuckin' Death demo and Paul Speckmann went on to front the legendary Master. Fuckin' Death was eventually re-released in 1991 on CD and vinyl, with additional tracks, by Nuclear Blast.

 

Death Strike (US) - Fuckin' Death (Demo) 1985, it's considered a classic now, but I was out of the loop in the 80's, don't think I heard this til about maybe 10 years ago.

 

Death Strike - Fuckin' Death, full album 1991

 

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Very cool - very raw and visceral.

 

Most of the references in interviews are to Master, not Deathstrike.   Not sure if the interviewees were aware of the change especially remembering the only way to find out about this kind of stuff was writing letters to other likeminded metallers (which was also main way of getting fanzines like Slayer Mag!).

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24 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Very cool - very raw and visceral.

 

Most of the references in interviews are to Master, not Deathstrike.   Not sure if the interviewees were aware of the change especially remembering the only way to find out about this kind of stuff was writing letters to other likeminded metallers (which was also main way of getting fanzines like Slayer Mag!).

From Wikipedia:

Speckmann's first band was War Cry, founded in 1982. In 1983, he started the band Master as a death metal band. Due to internal problems it was put on hold and Speckmann started another band, called Death Strike for which he recorded one demo. which was later released on Nuclear Blast with additional tracks as an album. After obtaining a deal for Abomination on Nuclear Blast, Master was approached at the same time and Master re-surfaced to record a full-length CD as well. The band subsequently broke up in the original form two days after the recording. They were replaced shortly afterward by Aaron Nickeas on drums, and Jim Martinelli on guitars. Speckmann also played and wrote all the songs for a band called Abomination and recorded two albums with them.

This period was followed by the Fleische tour with Master as headliner, Abomination as support and Pungent Stench in the middle of both acts. Nickeas and Speckmann played in both groups for 26 dates on this tour. Speckmann recorded the self-titled debut album, which was really the Master songs re-recorded with Martinelli and Nickeas. Nuclear Blast turned this down, and decided to remix the original recording with Schmidt and Mittelbrun. The recording with Martinelli and Nickeas was then released as the Speckmann Project.

Currently, Speckmann is playing bass in the Czech death metal band Krabathor, as well as keeping Master alive. Master has been recording and touring Europe extensively for the last several years.

 

There is also a Master demo from 1985 that I was not aware of until now and this might very probably be the one youy were reading about:

Master - Demo 1985 [Full Demo] [10"MLP]

 

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  • Dead1 changed the title to Slayer Mag Diaries: Quorthorn referred to Hellhammer as Wimphammer

So got up to mid and late 1990s.

First a bit of background - Metalion was mates with Euronymous, helped clean up Dead's bloodstains and even funded early Mayhem stuff.  So he was in the thick of it.

As a result starting about Slayer X he goes full black metal.  Understandably there's lots of hate against Varg who killed his friend.

 

---

 

Anyhow after this things get interesting in terms of interviews.

 

The interviews in the black metal period are extremely toxic.  Clearly Metallion had some thoughts here but the bands themselves were in the same boat. 

The death of Euronymous and subsequent commercialisation of the genre thanks to the murder clearly splintered the scene.

As such nearly all the black metal guys interviewed do two things - first they defend how underground and true they are.  They then sledge the rest of the scene for being posers.  Many of them call for more murder and more church burning and even rape and torture (Gaahl from Gorgoroth obviously acted on anything he might have said).

Then about 1998 you can see the Black Metal scene not only got oversaturated (much like "Life Metal" death metal bands in early 1990s) but also lost the plot with so many bands going proggy or becoming too
"foresty."

What's interesting is you really see the death of the optimism and unity of the 1980s extreme metal scene.  Sure in the 1980s the extreme metal crowd sledged the popular stuff but the scene was united.  Now it's fractured, divided and bitter.

Obviously changed a bit since but a fascinating insight into the 1990s black metal underground.

 

---

 

 

Forgot to mention, the website known as the Death Metal Underground is a remnant from this era, albeit degraded and increasingly confused (eg articles on cigars).

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On 10/10/2022 at 6:47 AM, Dead1 said:

So got up to mid and late 1990s.

First a bit of background - Metalion was mates with Euronymous, helped clean up Dead's bloodstains and even funded early Mayhem stuff.  So he was in the thick of it.

As a result starting about Slayer X he goes full black metal.  Understandably there's lots of hate against Varg who killed his friend.

 

---

 

Anyhow after this things get interesting in terms of interviews.

 

The interviews in the black metal period are extremely toxic.  Clearly Metallion had some thoughts here but the bands themselves were in the same boat. 

The death of Euronymous and subsequent commercialisation of the genre thanks to the murder clearly splintered the scene.

As such nearly all the black metal guys interviewed do two things - first they defend how underground and true they are.  They then sledge the rest of the scene for being posers.  Many of them call for more murder and more church burning and even rape and torture (Gaahl from Gorgoroth obviously acted on anything he might have said).

Then about 1998 you can see the Black Metal scene not only got oversaturated (much like "Life Metal" death metal bands in early 1990s) but also lost the plot with so many bands going proggy or becoming too
"foresty."

What's interesting is you really see the death of the optimism and unity of the 1980s extreme metal scene.  Sure in the 1980s the extreme metal crowd sledged the popular stuff but the scene was united.  Now it's fractured, divided and bitter.

Obviously changed a bit since but a fascinating insight into the 1990s black metal underground.

 

---

 

 

Forgot to mention, the website known as the Death Metal Underground is a remnant from this era, albeit degraded and increasingly confused (eg articles on cigars).

I'm guessing much has to do with numbers. When there's a small circle of extremists views tend to homogenize, but as fame and notoreity increases the number of people in the scene there's an influx of different, less extreme views. Is this bad? Depends. Is it inevitble? Yes.

My guess is that every movement 5-8 years removed from it's starting point will start to bitch about "the good old days", no matter the topic.

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