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What Are You Listening To?


khaos

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Autopsy-Morbidity Triumphant-like this also

Ken Mode-Null

Lord Mantis-Death Mask

Siege/Drop Dead-30th Anniversary addition

Dystopia/Humans=Garbage

Joy Division/Unknown Pleasures-back in college when I was working with a fledgling Shakespeare troupe, my friend fellow Shakespearean cast member, Steve Barney (RIP) who was into alternative rock and punk and such lent me a Joy Division tape he thought I might like knowing I liked metal.

I always knew this was an influential album but never really delved into the backstory. The CD I bought a few years ago has a second live CD with the same tracks for the most part and is very good, sonically. It's actually a good live rendering of the studeio tracks.

I read the liner notes for the first time and it talks about how raw the band was live and how the producer was difficult to work with and treated the band like children. Some of the members hated the album's production initially even going so far as to say it made them sound like Pink Floyd (which it certainly does not). In retrospect, the the surviving members all seem to agree the production choices were a masterstroke despite him being a control freak. The band felt manipulated but the collaboration resulted in an iconic piece of music. 

Now, years later, I understand why Steve wanted me to listen to one of his favorite bands. Steve was a very intelligent and interesting character-lanky, quirky, fun loving, compassionate dude with long curly hair-he looked like a rock'n'roll Gollum. He waved his freak flag proud.

We maintained our friendship when we both moved to the DC/Baltimore area. He got married, cut his hair and became a civic engineer. He was so creative, often writing scripts and producing theater and continued to perform until the end of his life whereas I moved on with my extra curriculars . He was a kind man who was loved by everyone he knew. Sadly, he passed from cancer a few years ago. Steve was one of of those unique and special individuals who touch your life and pass on through the unknowable looking glass, proving the good often die young. 

But he must have realized back in the 80's that the dark, slow burn, seething sounds of Unknown Pleasures,  teetering on loss of control and madness was metal adjacent. The university of Google informs me it influenced  diverse  metal artists including Tom Warrior and Neurosis.

 It must have been an influence on post metal and sludge, metal genres that were years from being born. The companion disc catches the way the band  must have sounded live,  whereas the producer felt that a studio album shouldn't simply replicate the band in a live setting. One of the great rock albums of all time.  

 

 

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WTF is with Halloween this year? Australian retail have been pushing Halloween more and more over the last decade or so, but this year they seem to have gone from ghosts and ghouls to bloody meerkats. Meerkats have obviously seen a rise in popularity too, but I was in a shop the other day and the only halloween stuff that had was variously dressed meerkats and none of them were remotely scary.

NP: AC/DC - Black Ice

 

 

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Flesh Crusher - Bastardized demo, I wish all Swedish death metal sounded just like this.

 

Decaying Crypt - Demo MMXXI, Seattle WA

 

Funebrarum - Dormant Hallucination, 2011 compilation

 

12 minutes ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

CARCASS - Live in Dublin

Bill Steer starting to look a bit like David Carradine these days.

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