Ian Christe's Blog, page 49

SWEDISH DEATH METAL: Entombed Announce Clandestine Orchestral Gig This November in Malmö

“What more can I possibly say about Entombed?” author Daniel Ekeroth writes in Swedish Death Metal. “Probably the most important and influential Swedish Death Metal band, they are also one of the best bands of any kind Sweden has ever offered.”

There is a lot to say at the moment. Entombed A.D., the band led by original vocalist Lars Göran Petrov, continues to tour globally and consume alcohol ferociously. Meanwhile, Entombed’s founding guitarists Alex Hellid andUlf “Uffe” Cederlund will be j...

MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW: We Lost Cliff Burton 30 Years Ago Today

photo: Harald Oimoen, from MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW

September 27, 1986. By heavy metal reckoning, this is a date of singular and extended tragedy. A tour bus carrying the members of Metallica skidded out of control on a dark Swedish road early that morning, resulting in a crash that took the life of bass player and musical visionary Clifford Lee Burton. Hard to believe that he was only twenty-four years old.

Thirty years have now passed, and so many questions continue to gnaw about what could...

HEAVY METAL MOVIES: Farewell Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Godfather of Gore

Herschell Gordon Lewis, the “inventor of the color red”—and the filmmaker who invented the modern gore movie in 1963 with the landmark drive-in chunk-blower Blood Feast—has died at 87. Raise your horns and fill your barf bags in tribute.

In addition to skin-splitting and ground-breaking splatter flick triumphs on the order of Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), Color Me Blood Red (1966), The Wizard of Gore (1970), and The Gore-Gore Girls (1972), Lewis also excelled in the manufacture an...

SUB POP USA: As Nirvana’s Nevermind Turns 25, Props to the Origins

On September 24, 1991, Nevermind by Nirvana hit record stores, and soon followed a rapid conquest of radio, MTV, international pop charts, every magazine on every newsstand everywhere, and global culture at large forever after. In rock history, few equally unmistakable “before-and-after” lines exist.

The major turning of the tables involved how completely the underground music of the 1980s squeezed through the pinhole opening of the moment, leading to a highly pressurizing reshaping of the la...

Bloody Roots of Ozzfest Year One—1996 on SiriusXM

BLOODY ROOTSof OZZFEST Year One—1996
Week of Sept 24, 2016

Sat 9/24, 6PM ET
Sun 9/25, 1PM ET
Mon 9/26, 9AM ET
Tues 9/27, 4PM ET
Thurs 9/29, 9PM ET

This week’s metal history lesson looks back 20 years to 1996, when a handful of trial Ozzfest trial concert dates tested the strength of metal and hard rock during the darkest hour of the alternative rock era. Though the success launched a legend, the outcome was never guaranteed. We revisit the confusing times with tracks by each participant from...

HEAVY METAL MOVIES: Blu-Ray Brutality for Sept 2016 w/DePalma, Chopping Mall, Labyrinth, Bill & Ted, Werewolf, Highlander…

Strap in for this month’s best metal, punk, and other hard-rock-related movies newly arrived on Blu-ray, with gratuitous guidance from Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, author of HEAVY METAL MOVIES: Guitar Barbarians, Mutant Bimbos, and Cult Zombies Amok in the 666 Most Ear- and Eye-Ripping Big Scream Films Ever!

De Palma (2016)

Brian De Palma, the mad moviemaking visionary behind the heavily metallic classics Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Carrie (1976) is the subject of a potently penetrating...

Swedish Death Metal Band of the Week: SOCIETY GANG RAPE

“The most dangerous female band on Earth,” according to Daniel Ekeroth, this band was born at full-pitch rage in 1991 as Sadistic Gang Rape. Just let that hit you and sink in. Three years later, this female-led wrath squad from Avesta moved toward crust punk, and then morphed into the slightly cleaned-up name Society Gang Rape. Either way, polite conversation typically acknowledges them as S.G.R.—even though these furies are all about stomping on any weakness that resembles “politeness.”

Dual...

Sun 11/6, Texas: Tony Rettman + Youth of Today Talk NYHC at Sound on Sound

Break down the walls, y’all! Shit-kicker ranch boots will meet scuffed Doc Martens in the moshpits of Sound on Sound Festival in McDade, Texas, this coming November 4 through 6.

On Sunday, Nov. 6, Tony Rettman, author of NYHC: New York Hardcore 1980-1990, will lead a panel of reunited Youth of Today members to discuss NYHC: the book, the music, and the scene Tony’s writing chronicles, celebrates, and brings to life with elbow-to-the-eyeball immediacy.

Joining Mr. Rettman to talk NYHC are onc...

Bloody Roots Celebrates Thirty Years of NEUROSIS on SiriusXM

BLOODY ROOTS CELEBRATES THIRTY YEARS OF NEUROSIS
Week of Sept 17, 2016

Sat 9/17, 6PM ET
Sun 9/18, 1PM ET
Mon 9/19, 9AM ET
Tues 9/20, 4PM ET
Thurs 9/22, 9PM ET

Gather together, all tribes of outlanders, for a special celebration honoring thirty years of the boundary-smashing S.F. metal collective Neurosis. From the raw crossover origins to the atmospheric masterpieces of recent years, your weekly metal history lesson delivers music by Neurosis, side projects Shrinebuilder and Jesus Fucking Chr...

Mean Deviation: Opeth’s Boffo Billboard Feature, Beers, and Big Tour

All the way back in 2006, Swedish Death Metal author Daniel Ekeroth author wrote about Opeth: “Their commercial and critical success has been beyond imagination.” A decade hence, with their twelfth studio album, Sorceress, poised for release on September 30, Opeth stands at an enviable peak almost as cosmic as their prog-infused metal music (or really metal-infused prog, a this point).

Now no less a mainstream institution than music biz bible Billboard has profiled the band. Not bad for an ex...