Mark Rice's Blog: All Things Metallic, page 3
July 17, 2011
Z is for Zenith
Have you ever heard it said that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, as it’ll only lead to disappointment? It’s one of the things ‘they’ say. Then again, ‘they’ talk a fair amount of shit. Existence is infinitely more satisfying when we think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions.
I recently met one of my musical heroes, Zodiac Mindwarp, heavy metal’s poet laureate and badass adventurer/novelist to boot. As a 16-year-old, I’d seen Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction blow the roof off Glasgow Barrowlands on their Tattooed Beat Messiah tour. Back then, the heavy metal press was predicting that Zodiac would be the next big thing. The metal media recognised him as a lyrical genius with a wild sense of humour and a knack for crafting timeless songs. The band seemed to have everything on a plate: a deal with a major record label; critical acclaim; adoration from fans; lyrical and musical talent in spades; a dirty image that was part Motörhead, part Hell’s Angel and part spaghetti-western gunslinger. The prophesied zillions of album sales never happened, though. Fiercely protective of his artistic vision, Zodiac refused to compromise when record-label executives asked him to water down his look and sound. The label wanted a UK version of Bon Jovi and – inexplicably – believed that a bunch of tattooed, diesel-fumed, poetry-spouting, insanely intelligent heavy metal behemoths from Yorkshire, England could be rubbed clean, polished, lobotomised, repackaged and convinced to record insincere pseudo-love songs with bubblegum lyrics. This suggestion did not go down well with Mr Mindwarp. Instead of using his £40,000 advance fee from the record label to rent a studio and begin work on a new album (as they had instructed), Zodiac spent the lot on drugs and comics. In one day. A symbolic act of defiance by a visionary who couldn’t be lured off his true course. Throughout the next couple of decades, ZM navigated his own path, fuelled by unflinching self-belief and artistic integrity. Record labels came and went, as did a string of bandmates, but the core of the group - Zodiac and his trusty guitarist Cobalt Stargazer - weathered every storm together. Rather than allowing himself to be transformed into the poster boy of record-label executives’ drooling dollar-encrusted fantasies, Zodiac became a cult figure, an anti-hero metal deity who walked it as he talked it, always speaking his mind without fear. He remained one of the good guys.
Zodiac generously gave me permission to quote his lyrics in my novel, Metallic Dreams. During the course of our back-and-forth e-mails about the book, I came to know Zodiac as Z; this single letter was how he ended his messages and how I started mine. The brevity of the ‘Z’ nomenclature seemed strangely ironic when associated with this man, as his public persona has had many grandiose titles: Zodiac Mindwarp; the High Priest of Love; the Skull Spark Joker; He of the Untamed Stare; the Zen Master; the Sleazegrinder; the Steel-Cage Jockey with the Starborn Connection; the Prime Mover; and the title which more than any other came to define him - the Tattooed Beat Messiah. To me, though, he was now simply Z. I liked that. It seemed that despite his unquestionable genius, this man was humble at heart.
By chance – or serendipity – Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction’s first Scottish gig in years coincided with the release of Metallic Dreams. A couple of days before the concert, I received an e-mail from Z’s tour manager. It stated, ‘Your presence is requested backstage after the gig. Be there. Z says hi.’ This message stirred up in me a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Zodiac Mindwarp’s backstage antics are legendary. Tales abound of multiple ‘punk-rock bitches’ gaffer-taped to walls and floors, bare bottoms exposed, ready to be plundered by Z when the Viking bumlust comes over him. And those are the tame stories. The books Fucked by Rock: The Unspeakable Confessions of Zodiac Mindwarp and Collateral Damage: The Zodiac Mindwarp American Tour Daries are uncensored descriptions of life on the road with the Mindwarp man. By comparison, Mötley Crüe’s autobiography reads like a politically correct fairytale. It seemed that I had been invited into the lion’s den, the inner sanctum of depravity.
On gig night I hit the mean streets of Glasgow headed for the ABC, an old renovated cinema now used for concerts. Definitely one of my favourite venues in the city. Good acoustics, small enough to be intimate, and with a dark ambience. In my rucksack was a signed copy of Metallic Dreams, a gift for Z. When the lights went down inside the ABC, I looked on with a smile as my old inspiration and new friend Z swaggered onto the stage, pulling a few of his trademark poses along the way. Z’s filthy battle-scarred leather waistcoat sported an oil-streaked patch that read: PROTECTED BY LOADED GUNS. His shirt was strategically open, revealing a solid black cross tattoo – one of his newer additions – stretching across-chest and down-abdomen. Two songs in, my friend Darran let out a fart so foul that the people around him – me included - flew into a panic. (Actually, the word ‘fart’ doesn’t come close to describing the smell that came out of his body: truer to say that Darran expelled an evil mist.) As panic rippled through the crowd, which was parting like the Red Sea, Darran stood at the epicentre of the devastation, grinning like the village idiot. Meanwhile, on stage, Z sashayed and swaggered, slithered and pouted, stomped and growled, oblivious - or perhaps immune – to the olfactory genocide that was occurring a few feet below him. Despite the mass NAE (Near-Asphyxiation Experience), the gig was phenomenal.
When the band left the stage and the last vestiges of overdriven feedback from Cobalt Stargazer’s guitar amps dulled to a hum, I stepped into the backstage abyss. There he was, reclining on a rust-coloured sofa - Z: the apocalyptic heavy metal biker poet from a far-flung planet. No naked punk-rock bitches were gaffer-taped to surfaces. Some females were present, but they weren’t the teenage tottie of backstage lore. These were women with dangerous curves, lascivious smiles and more than a few miles on the clock. Predators rather than prey. The women were clothed (mostly) and had the freedom of movement that not being gaffer-taped to a wall allows. Z seemed nonplussed by their presence. I approached Z, who spotted the copy of Metallic Dreams in my hand and greeted me before I could introduce myself. Like an excited child at Christmas, he opened the book and read the hand-written dedication. “What chapter do I make an appearance?” he asked. I replied that he first appears in chapter 14. “Fookin’ excellent,” he grinned, “I’m going to read this in my hotel room tonight. Thank you, Mr Rice.” (In e-mails, Z had always insisted on calling me ‘Mr Rice’, an unnecessary formality but one which I came to understand as a sort of respect, something the Z man only extends to those he perceives as kindred spirits.) ‘Holy crap,’ I thought, sitting on that burnished backstage sofa, ‘I now exist in the mind of Mindwarp. This will surely lead to some kind of cosmic chaos.’
Z and I chatted about literature and poetry, shared passions. We discussed the two adventurous quests he had made with Bill Drummond, which resulted in the books Bad Wisdom and Wild Highway. I asked about his proposed third adventure, and the book that would follow, completing the trilogy. Z fixed me with his Untamed Stare and whispered, “I really want to do the third trip, but I think it might kill me. Or Drummond. Or both. I don’t know how we survived those first two adventures. It’s a miracle.” Z steered the conversation to my novel, its genesis and inspirations, its message. As I talked about the celestial significance of ‘sounds of power’, inverted crucifixion, the uprising of the old Viking religion in modern-day Norway, and the importance of protecting very closely those fragile childhood dreams, Z held Metallic Dreams up to the light, gazed at the bloody pentalpha on its cover, grinned, and nodded what I could only perceive as approval. At that moment, I was struck by a wave of epiphany: I had been enjoying Z’s art for decades; now he was appreciating mine. As that surreal realisation sank in, I felt a mixture of humility, gratitude and happiness.
The backstage area began to clear of bodies. A blonde woman (who claimed to be the secret lovechild of Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop) asked me what Z and I had been so deep in conversation about. I told her about Metallic Dreams. She looked me up and down, an expression of astonishment hijacking her face, and said, “You wrote a book?” (I should mention that I had neither shaved nor had a haircut in almost a year, and so looked like a caveman, but still…you can’t judge a book by its cover…or a man by his ursine exterior.) As the lovechild apologised for her lack of tact (and I laughed my arse off, thinking it all very funny), Z was politely declining the advances of a voluptuous brunette admirer. “What do you mean you’re going back to your hotel to read a book?” asked the baffled woman. “I want to come to your hotel room and do all kinds of things to you. You’re Zodiac Fucking Mindwarp, the King of Debauchery, and you’re turning down a night with this?” Using hand gestures, the comely brunette accentuated her curves. Z replied, “I’ve done all that a million times. It isn’t like twenty years ago. I have a girlfriend. And tonight I’m going back to my hotel room, where I’m going to start reading Mr Rice’s book.” The woman began to argue the point, so I intervened, pointing out that: (A) pushiness wouldn’t get her anywhere, nor would desperation; (B) I was the author of the book in question, and didn’t appreciate her trying to vagina-block Z’s intended reading activities. She glared at me, then her expression softened and she smiled.
The backstage crowd spilled out of the building onto Sauchiehall Street. As the guitarist from Scottish band The Deadly Romantics educated Blondie’s (alleged) daughter on the finer points of cellular regeneration in the human body, their vocalist, Bruce Hotchkies, chatted to me about Metallic Dreams. Z walked up to a homeless man and began talking in hushed tones. After a few minutes, the homeless man asked me if he could borrow a pen to get Z’s autograph. I pulled a pen from my rucksack and told him to keep it, as I had others at home. The brunette, meanwhile, was still trying to coax Z into her panties. Having given up on the full-frontal assault, she was now attempting to tease him from a distance. Oblivious to her advances, Z spent the next ten minutes transforming the front page of the homeless man’s Big Issue magazine into a work of art. Most ‘rock stars’ wouldn’t have given this man the time of day, let alone an autograph. Z, however, was happy to chat with, and create one-of-a-kind artwork for, a fellow human being who was down on his luck. As I looked at the comic art, marvelling at its intricacy, Z whispered in my ear, “I wish I could give him more, but I don’t have anything.” Then, with a Eureka expression, he fished out a packet of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them to the man, who was over the moon with the gift. I took a step back and looked at the scene: curvaceous women were pulling out all the stops to attract the Tattooed Beat Messiah’s attention; he could have had his pick of the bunch, or – if he so chose – had them all at the same time; it was more important to Z, though, to brighten up the day of a homeless man, to show him compassion and generosity, to treat him with dignity, to create personalised art just for him. It may have been the cold Glasgow wind, but my eyes welled up with tears as I understood the beauty in what I had just witnessed.
Moments before Z took off in his van with band and crew, he and I posed for more photos together, having already done a brief photoshoot backstage. Out in the street, Bruce Hotchkies - vocalist of The Deadly Romantics - was the designated photographer. After three or four snaps, Bruce announced that there was enough memory space for only one more shot, and told us to make it a good one. As Bruce pressed the camera’s shutter button, I felt something warm and wet against my neck, then realised that Z had blessed me with a spontaneous kiss. Yes, the camera captured it: me grinning; Z slurping; jealous women in the background thinking, 'How did that hairy bastard get a kiss from the Tattooed Beat Messiah?'
As Z’s van disappeared into the horizon, I headed for a pub, accompanied by the Blondie/Iggy lovechild, Bruce and Gary from The Deadly Romantics, and the brunette who had tried so hard to seduce Z. For the first time, I fully understood Carpocrates’s Assertion, which Umberto Eco paraphrased as, ‘…only by committing every act can the soul be freed of its passions and return to its original purity.’ Zodiac Mindwarp had experienced – some say written the book on – vices and debauchery, yet I had come to know him as a man of deep empathy and compassion, a beautiful soul. The Tattooed Beat Messiah had been known by myriad majestic titles over the years, but now preferred the simplicity of ‘Z’. Just a single letter. The zenith of humility. Z: sometimes less truly is more.
I recently met one of my musical heroes, Zodiac Mindwarp, heavy metal’s poet laureate and badass adventurer/novelist to boot. As a 16-year-old, I’d seen Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction blow the roof off Glasgow Barrowlands on their Tattooed Beat Messiah tour. Back then, the heavy metal press was predicting that Zodiac would be the next big thing. The metal media recognised him as a lyrical genius with a wild sense of humour and a knack for crafting timeless songs. The band seemed to have everything on a plate: a deal with a major record label; critical acclaim; adoration from fans; lyrical and musical talent in spades; a dirty image that was part Motörhead, part Hell’s Angel and part spaghetti-western gunslinger. The prophesied zillions of album sales never happened, though. Fiercely protective of his artistic vision, Zodiac refused to compromise when record-label executives asked him to water down his look and sound. The label wanted a UK version of Bon Jovi and – inexplicably – believed that a bunch of tattooed, diesel-fumed, poetry-spouting, insanely intelligent heavy metal behemoths from Yorkshire, England could be rubbed clean, polished, lobotomised, repackaged and convinced to record insincere pseudo-love songs with bubblegum lyrics. This suggestion did not go down well with Mr Mindwarp. Instead of using his £40,000 advance fee from the record label to rent a studio and begin work on a new album (as they had instructed), Zodiac spent the lot on drugs and comics. In one day. A symbolic act of defiance by a visionary who couldn’t be lured off his true course. Throughout the next couple of decades, ZM navigated his own path, fuelled by unflinching self-belief and artistic integrity. Record labels came and went, as did a string of bandmates, but the core of the group - Zodiac and his trusty guitarist Cobalt Stargazer - weathered every storm together. Rather than allowing himself to be transformed into the poster boy of record-label executives’ drooling dollar-encrusted fantasies, Zodiac became a cult figure, an anti-hero metal deity who walked it as he talked it, always speaking his mind without fear. He remained one of the good guys.
Zodiac generously gave me permission to quote his lyrics in my novel, Metallic Dreams. During the course of our back-and-forth e-mails about the book, I came to know Zodiac as Z; this single letter was how he ended his messages and how I started mine. The brevity of the ‘Z’ nomenclature seemed strangely ironic when associated with this man, as his public persona has had many grandiose titles: Zodiac Mindwarp; the High Priest of Love; the Skull Spark Joker; He of the Untamed Stare; the Zen Master; the Sleazegrinder; the Steel-Cage Jockey with the Starborn Connection; the Prime Mover; and the title which more than any other came to define him - the Tattooed Beat Messiah. To me, though, he was now simply Z. I liked that. It seemed that despite his unquestionable genius, this man was humble at heart.
By chance – or serendipity – Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction’s first Scottish gig in years coincided with the release of Metallic Dreams. A couple of days before the concert, I received an e-mail from Z’s tour manager. It stated, ‘Your presence is requested backstage after the gig. Be there. Z says hi.’ This message stirred up in me a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Zodiac Mindwarp’s backstage antics are legendary. Tales abound of multiple ‘punk-rock bitches’ gaffer-taped to walls and floors, bare bottoms exposed, ready to be plundered by Z when the Viking bumlust comes over him. And those are the tame stories. The books Fucked by Rock: The Unspeakable Confessions of Zodiac Mindwarp and Collateral Damage: The Zodiac Mindwarp American Tour Daries are uncensored descriptions of life on the road with the Mindwarp man. By comparison, Mötley Crüe’s autobiography reads like a politically correct fairytale. It seemed that I had been invited into the lion’s den, the inner sanctum of depravity.
On gig night I hit the mean streets of Glasgow headed for the ABC, an old renovated cinema now used for concerts. Definitely one of my favourite venues in the city. Good acoustics, small enough to be intimate, and with a dark ambience. In my rucksack was a signed copy of Metallic Dreams, a gift for Z. When the lights went down inside the ABC, I looked on with a smile as my old inspiration and new friend Z swaggered onto the stage, pulling a few of his trademark poses along the way. Z’s filthy battle-scarred leather waistcoat sported an oil-streaked patch that read: PROTECTED BY LOADED GUNS. His shirt was strategically open, revealing a solid black cross tattoo – one of his newer additions – stretching across-chest and down-abdomen. Two songs in, my friend Darran let out a fart so foul that the people around him – me included - flew into a panic. (Actually, the word ‘fart’ doesn’t come close to describing the smell that came out of his body: truer to say that Darran expelled an evil mist.) As panic rippled through the crowd, which was parting like the Red Sea, Darran stood at the epicentre of the devastation, grinning like the village idiot. Meanwhile, on stage, Z sashayed and swaggered, slithered and pouted, stomped and growled, oblivious - or perhaps immune – to the olfactory genocide that was occurring a few feet below him. Despite the mass NAE (Near-Asphyxiation Experience), the gig was phenomenal.
When the band left the stage and the last vestiges of overdriven feedback from Cobalt Stargazer’s guitar amps dulled to a hum, I stepped into the backstage abyss. There he was, reclining on a rust-coloured sofa - Z: the apocalyptic heavy metal biker poet from a far-flung planet. No naked punk-rock bitches were gaffer-taped to surfaces. Some females were present, but they weren’t the teenage tottie of backstage lore. These were women with dangerous curves, lascivious smiles and more than a few miles on the clock. Predators rather than prey. The women were clothed (mostly) and had the freedom of movement that not being gaffer-taped to a wall allows. Z seemed nonplussed by their presence. I approached Z, who spotted the copy of Metallic Dreams in my hand and greeted me before I could introduce myself. Like an excited child at Christmas, he opened the book and read the hand-written dedication. “What chapter do I make an appearance?” he asked. I replied that he first appears in chapter 14. “Fookin’ excellent,” he grinned, “I’m going to read this in my hotel room tonight. Thank you, Mr Rice.” (In e-mails, Z had always insisted on calling me ‘Mr Rice’, an unnecessary formality but one which I came to understand as a sort of respect, something the Z man only extends to those he perceives as kindred spirits.) ‘Holy crap,’ I thought, sitting on that burnished backstage sofa, ‘I now exist in the mind of Mindwarp. This will surely lead to some kind of cosmic chaos.’
Z and I chatted about literature and poetry, shared passions. We discussed the two adventurous quests he had made with Bill Drummond, which resulted in the books Bad Wisdom and Wild Highway. I asked about his proposed third adventure, and the book that would follow, completing the trilogy. Z fixed me with his Untamed Stare and whispered, “I really want to do the third trip, but I think it might kill me. Or Drummond. Or both. I don’t know how we survived those first two adventures. It’s a miracle.” Z steered the conversation to my novel, its genesis and inspirations, its message. As I talked about the celestial significance of ‘sounds of power’, inverted crucifixion, the uprising of the old Viking religion in modern-day Norway, and the importance of protecting very closely those fragile childhood dreams, Z held Metallic Dreams up to the light, gazed at the bloody pentalpha on its cover, grinned, and nodded what I could only perceive as approval. At that moment, I was struck by a wave of epiphany: I had been enjoying Z’s art for decades; now he was appreciating mine. As that surreal realisation sank in, I felt a mixture of humility, gratitude and happiness.
The backstage area began to clear of bodies. A blonde woman (who claimed to be the secret lovechild of Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop) asked me what Z and I had been so deep in conversation about. I told her about Metallic Dreams. She looked me up and down, an expression of astonishment hijacking her face, and said, “You wrote a book?” (I should mention that I had neither shaved nor had a haircut in almost a year, and so looked like a caveman, but still…you can’t judge a book by its cover…or a man by his ursine exterior.) As the lovechild apologised for her lack of tact (and I laughed my arse off, thinking it all very funny), Z was politely declining the advances of a voluptuous brunette admirer. “What do you mean you’re going back to your hotel to read a book?” asked the baffled woman. “I want to come to your hotel room and do all kinds of things to you. You’re Zodiac Fucking Mindwarp, the King of Debauchery, and you’re turning down a night with this?” Using hand gestures, the comely brunette accentuated her curves. Z replied, “I’ve done all that a million times. It isn’t like twenty years ago. I have a girlfriend. And tonight I’m going back to my hotel room, where I’m going to start reading Mr Rice’s book.” The woman began to argue the point, so I intervened, pointing out that: (A) pushiness wouldn’t get her anywhere, nor would desperation; (B) I was the author of the book in question, and didn’t appreciate her trying to vagina-block Z’s intended reading activities. She glared at me, then her expression softened and she smiled.
The backstage crowd spilled out of the building onto Sauchiehall Street. As the guitarist from Scottish band The Deadly Romantics educated Blondie’s (alleged) daughter on the finer points of cellular regeneration in the human body, their vocalist, Bruce Hotchkies, chatted to me about Metallic Dreams. Z walked up to a homeless man and began talking in hushed tones. After a few minutes, the homeless man asked me if he could borrow a pen to get Z’s autograph. I pulled a pen from my rucksack and told him to keep it, as I had others at home. The brunette, meanwhile, was still trying to coax Z into her panties. Having given up on the full-frontal assault, she was now attempting to tease him from a distance. Oblivious to her advances, Z spent the next ten minutes transforming the front page of the homeless man’s Big Issue magazine into a work of art. Most ‘rock stars’ wouldn’t have given this man the time of day, let alone an autograph. Z, however, was happy to chat with, and create one-of-a-kind artwork for, a fellow human being who was down on his luck. As I looked at the comic art, marvelling at its intricacy, Z whispered in my ear, “I wish I could give him more, but I don’t have anything.” Then, with a Eureka expression, he fished out a packet of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them to the man, who was over the moon with the gift. I took a step back and looked at the scene: curvaceous women were pulling out all the stops to attract the Tattooed Beat Messiah’s attention; he could have had his pick of the bunch, or – if he so chose – had them all at the same time; it was more important to Z, though, to brighten up the day of a homeless man, to show him compassion and generosity, to treat him with dignity, to create personalised art just for him. It may have been the cold Glasgow wind, but my eyes welled up with tears as I understood the beauty in what I had just witnessed.
Moments before Z took off in his van with band and crew, he and I posed for more photos together, having already done a brief photoshoot backstage. Out in the street, Bruce Hotchkies - vocalist of The Deadly Romantics - was the designated photographer. After three or four snaps, Bruce announced that there was enough memory space for only one more shot, and told us to make it a good one. As Bruce pressed the camera’s shutter button, I felt something warm and wet against my neck, then realised that Z had blessed me with a spontaneous kiss. Yes, the camera captured it: me grinning; Z slurping; jealous women in the background thinking, 'How did that hairy bastard get a kiss from the Tattooed Beat Messiah?'
As Z’s van disappeared into the horizon, I headed for a pub, accompanied by the Blondie/Iggy lovechild, Bruce and Gary from The Deadly Romantics, and the brunette who had tried so hard to seduce Z. For the first time, I fully understood Carpocrates’s Assertion, which Umberto Eco paraphrased as, ‘…only by committing every act can the soul be freed of its passions and return to its original purity.’ Zodiac Mindwarp had experienced – some say written the book on – vices and debauchery, yet I had come to know him as a man of deep empathy and compassion, a beautiful soul. The Tattooed Beat Messiah had been known by myriad majestic titles over the years, but now preferred the simplicity of ‘Z’. Just a single letter. The zenith of humility. Z: sometimes less truly is more.
January 28, 2011
Bill Drummond, Thanks for the Inspiration
Opinions on Bill Drummond vary wildly. To some, he is an opportunistic and shameless self-publicist willing to do almost anything to draw attention to himself. Others believe him to be a visionary, a creative genius who turns everything he touches into art: music; painting; photography; conceptual ideas; literature. I'm in the latter camp. One of the things I like most about Bill is that he thinks big. In fact, he thinks mythically. He doesn't start a creative project without first having an absolutely clear understanding of: (a) why he is doing it, and (b) the symbolic meaning of the finished product. Sometimes only Bill himself fully appreciates what he's trying to achieve with a particular piece of work, but that doesn't diminish his enthusiasm one bit.
$20,000 is affecting me in the same way that Drummond's previous books did: upon seeing art through his eyes - or through the filter of his mind, at least - I step out each day into a world that seems full of promise and beauty, an arena of mythic possibilities.
Bill goes to great lengths to avoid actually enjoying himself, but many of his artistic statements are rich in irony, and obviously the products of a finely tuned sense of humour.
From creating timeless music with the KLF to producing the greatest heavy metal album of all time (Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction's 'Tattooed Beat Messiah') to embarking upon world-adventuring voyages of personal and artistic discovery, Drummond's intrepid and irrepressible creative drive is an inspiration. Thank you, Mr Drummond, for changing my worldview for the better.
$20,000 is affecting me in the same way that Drummond's previous books did: upon seeing art through his eyes - or through the filter of his mind, at least - I step out each day into a world that seems full of promise and beauty, an arena of mythic possibilities.
Bill goes to great lengths to avoid actually enjoying himself, but many of his artistic statements are rich in irony, and obviously the products of a finely tuned sense of humour.
From creating timeless music with the KLF to producing the greatest heavy metal album of all time (Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction's 'Tattooed Beat Messiah') to embarking upon world-adventuring voyages of personal and artistic discovery, Drummond's intrepid and irrepressible creative drive is an inspiration. Thank you, Mr Drummond, for changing my worldview for the better.
January 25, 2011
Yin and Yang
There's definitely a balance in the Universe. Today, on the same day that the external hard drive containing all the Metallic Dreams data (as well as hundreds of Gigabytes of music, movies and TV shows) decided to die, my book received another touching five-star review on amazon. I'm choosing to focus on the review, as it's always life-affirming to hear that a story has resonated with a reader. In fact, that's the whole point of storytelling. It's not about authors' egos or publishing houses' profit margins; it's about stirring up emotions in readers and making them feel.
As far as the hard drive goes, I've learned an expensive lesson: if data's important don't pick an external hard drive based on its storage capacity or price; choose a drop-tested model that's shockproof, waterproof, fireproof and bulletproof, as it will keep those priceless zeros and ones safe. With any luck, a data-recovery specialist will be able to retrieve everything from my old drive and transfer it onto a new, more resilient one. For a few hundred quid, of course. Long ago I figured out that when it comes to toilet paper, washing-up liquid and coffee, you get what you pay for. I can now add external hard drives to that list.
And what holy missile of wrath destroyed the drive? A plate. Not a large or particularly heavy plate. Just a regular plate which slid off the bed and fell one foot onto the hard drive's 'sturdy plastic casing'.
Right now I'm off to have a mozzarella and pesto pizza along with a huge mug of filter coffee...just to tip the balance a little further towards good.
As far as the hard drive goes, I've learned an expensive lesson: if data's important don't pick an external hard drive based on its storage capacity or price; choose a drop-tested model that's shockproof, waterproof, fireproof and bulletproof, as it will keep those priceless zeros and ones safe. With any luck, a data-recovery specialist will be able to retrieve everything from my old drive and transfer it onto a new, more resilient one. For a few hundred quid, of course. Long ago I figured out that when it comes to toilet paper, washing-up liquid and coffee, you get what you pay for. I can now add external hard drives to that list.
And what holy missile of wrath destroyed the drive? A plate. Not a large or particularly heavy plate. Just a regular plate which slid off the bed and fell one foot onto the hard drive's 'sturdy plastic casing'.
Right now I'm off to have a mozzarella and pesto pizza along with a huge mug of filter coffee...just to tip the balance a little further towards good.
January 17, 2011
Metallic Dreams
Well, it's been a long time coming. Somewhere back in the mists of time (actually, in a cottage in Sutherland, Scottish Highlands, September 2005) I had an idea for a work of fiction that would weave together mythology, religion, folklore, heavy metal culture, childhood dreams, blood rituals and lots of rock 'n' roll excess. Coming up with the idea was the easy part. What came next was a year of non-stop writing as the story sprawled out into a War and Peace-length manuscript, then two years of editing to trim the fat and make sure every page of Metallic Dreams flowed easily and naturally.
The story challenges prejudices and contains an underlying message which is communicated via the actions of characters, not by authorial intrusion. My job, as I saw it, was to get out of the way and let the story unfold. As the old saying goes, 'Show, don't tell.'
Metallic Dreams is not a book for the faint-hearted. It is cerebral, visceral, graphic and emotionally charged. While editing, I turned my bullshit detector up to maximum and removed everything superfluous or pretentious. The novel is inspired by timeless childhood dreams and my ongoing love affair with music.
I hope you like it.
Mark Rice, Hamilton, January 2011
The story challenges prejudices and contains an underlying message which is communicated via the actions of characters, not by authorial intrusion. My job, as I saw it, was to get out of the way and let the story unfold. As the old saying goes, 'Show, don't tell.'
Metallic Dreams is not a book for the faint-hearted. It is cerebral, visceral, graphic and emotionally charged. While editing, I turned my bullshit detector up to maximum and removed everything superfluous or pretentious. The novel is inspired by timeless childhood dreams and my ongoing love affair with music.
I hope you like it.
Mark Rice, Hamilton, January 2011
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