Thursday, April 24, 2008

Gene Hoglan's Ballbag of Cassettes

A few weeks back fellow Metal Inquisition staffer SkullKrusher posted some gems from his vinyl collection. I, of course, also have a respectable collection of metal vinyl, but instead I thought I'd share with you something else very special--my metal cassette collection.

Yes, I know that vinyl is much cooler, but I'm a child of the 80s; the audio cassette provided the soundtrack to much of my life. I still remember buying my first cassette in 5th grade (Ugly Kid Joe's As Ugly As They Wanna Be EP) and making my dad drive me to the Wiz so I could buy Metallica's black album (not worth the gas it cost). I spent countless hours of my teen years making shitty mix tapes from CDs and stuff I taped off of WSOU (back when they still played real metal). And really, when it comes to reproducing the muddy, lifeless production of Scott Burns what better choice is there than a hissing, mangled cassette?

And now, without further ado, I present to you six gems from my metal cassette collection:



Still to this day, Demilich's Nespithe remains one of the most twisted and original death metal albums of all time. Featuring the sickest guttural vocals ever recorded and bizarre, nonsensical song titles like "The Sixteenth Six-Tooth Son of Fourteen Four-Regional Dimensions (Still Unnamed)" these guys put Finland on the map when everyone was busy jerking off to Swedish death metal. I bought this cassette from drummer extraordinaire Dave Witte a few year ago when he was selling off his cassette collection (What an idiot!).

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One of the few black metal bands that does not blow. These guys are like the Cynic of black metal. Not nearly as technical, but you can hear a lot of jazz and progressive influences. And instead of robot vocals you get weirdo goth vocals that sound like a cross between Leonard Cohen and Peter Murphy. A lot of the songs on this demo were re-recorded for their full length, which is awesome, but this remains my favorite stuff they've ever done because of the rawer production. I got this tape from Double Decker Records in Allentown, PA back when I was in college. They bought some dude's metal collection and it was the sickest I've ever seen. Just about every great metal record released in the 80s in either mint edition or still sealed as well as tons of early 90s black metal that must now be worth a small fortune (I still regret not having bought more, but I was a poor college student), and a bunch of tapes and t-shirts (I bought a size XL Dark Angel "LA Caffeine Machine" t-shit that was so big it came down to my knees).

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I have no idea why I bought this tape. I can get into De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, but this fucking sucks. It's a live bootleg and it sounds like shit. I've only ever listened to it once and I couldn't even get through the first song. Is this at least worth anything?

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Here's a fun game to play with friends when you're doing laps around the Newark airport waiting for someone's flight to arrive: put the Grindcrusher comp in your tape deck and see if you can name all the bands without looking at the case. Sure some of them are easy, but I dare most of you retards to tell the difference between Intense Degree and Sore Throat. When I played this game with Lucho Metales he couldn't even guess Repulsion (POSER)!

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Gorguts's early material doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves. As far as brutal mid-tempo 90s death metal goes, it doesn't get any better than this. Plus, it's one of the few albums Scott Burns ever produced that doesn't sound like complete shit. Blue Grape, they just don't make merch like you used to.

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When I'm cruising over the Pulaski Skyway in my Mercury Cougar there's nothing better than singing along to this, my favorite Iron Maiden album, blasting out of my tape deck. When I saw them last month and they played "Moonchild" and "The Clairvoyant" during the encore I was so excited that I was momentarily able to forgot about Janick Gers prancing around onstage like a girl twirling his guitar.

17 comments:

  1. HOLD ON, HOLD ON! I will not be called a poser on the interweb for everyone to read! It took me longer than it should have to identify Repulsion, I will admit...but to be fair, I forgot they were on that comp and I was trying to think of what weierdo british band it could have been. We certainly figured out that the comp was much worse than we remembered. Neither one of us had heard the tape in like ten years...so it really was harder than you think to spot some of them once you go beyond the obvious ones.

    laslty, this post makes me think that Mr Skullkrusher and I will have to roll up our sleeves and get our Raped Ape, Demolition Hammer, Traci Lords Loves Noise, Foul STench and Nile demos out and photograph those suckers....as well as our late 80's Destruction dubbed tapes. We could generate at least 35 very boring posts. But we'll do it anyway.

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  2. man, we definitely need a Demolition Hammer post! maybe Gene Hoglan's Balls can translate that weird italian page that talks about vinnie daze dying of malaria or getting struck by lightning or whatever the hell happened to him.

    about 2 or 3 years ago i threw out several trash bags full of cassettes, including gems like "Considered Dead", Desultory, Death Angel, and Devastation.

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  3. Ved buens ende were one of the greatest bands of all time. I don't have that tape, but I do have one of the CD reissues, and I can certainly concur it is a fantastic record, and a criminally overlooked gem. The album is still better, though.

    I think that Mayhem live boot is a rather recent release, which I guess you could quickly disprove if you've had it lying around for years. I don't think it's worth much, considering I suppose the recording is the same as the "Live in Leipzig" record? That would be the single greatest thing Mayhem ever did if you ask me, and probably their only worthwile effort save for their last record.

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  4. you know, lucho is right, ill go to the my storage unit and get the rubbermaid containers with all the tapes. we threw away TONS of them, but there's still a few gems. stay tuned for that.

    onto the post: i'm very disappointed that there was no white-casing cassettes in the post. those are true classics.

    i love the blue grape merchandise tear-off in the gorguts cover! im surprised you controlled the urge to tear it and order an over priced cancer long-sleeve.

    finally, i have a dubbed copy of 'seventh son.' i photocopied the cover and colored it with color pencils. it's a true classic example of how little of a social life i had as a teen. i'll post that one in my 'tape post', if i ever get to it.

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  5. uh, the sore throat track is one of the easiest to recognize, it's a short weird blur of drum machine, looped vocal noises and a coo-coo-clock...

    I still have Disgrace to the Corpse of Sid on vinyl, somewhere.

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  6. "as ugly..." was my fist cassette too! that's why UKJ will always have a special place in my heart and i've liked everything they did uncritically (with "motel california" not being that bad even from an objective point of view). i'm even forcefeeding myself godsmack-cutouts-with-whit-on-vocals that is another animal. i'm like an ever-forgiving girl in love.

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  7. Janick should be shot on stage when he does that clown number, maybe harassing the 2 minutes to midnight main riff as always...

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  8. I was in a band with Dave Witte and we would talk about how low and guttural the Demilich vocals were all the time!

    How about Rottrevore? Sick vox!

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  9. Anonymous Rating for this Post:
    **** (4 stars)
    analog power!

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  10. Great post! All of my cassettes (that I didn't sell or have stolen) are in my mom's garage in a Safeway bag. Once in a while when I am over there, I'll dig through the bag for laughs. The last time I was there I found my old Nuclear Assault tapes. I forgot how fucking awful their cover of Communication Breakdown was. Overall..still good times.

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  11. i still have that grindcrusher comp on cassette as well!

    "where's me marko? where's me sharko?"

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  12. Looking at my original cassette collection...I guess the most weird piece is Autopsy's "Fiend for blood". 6 songs repeated on each side. I even own Death's "Leprosy" on cassette, LP & CD!

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  13. Sure some of them are easy, but I dare most of you retards to tell the difference between Intense Degree and Sore Throat.

    Retarded as I am... Intense Degree was quite good back then, Sore Throat was the opposite - that's how to keep them apart (besides the fact that they didn't sound the same at all).

    Nuclear Assault tapes. I forgot how fucking awful their cover of Communication Breakdown was.

    So awful that I never even realized they covered it.

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  14. look man, you can make up all the excuses in the world for not being able to identify repulsion, but they dont cut it. how can you not know the BEST band on the grindcrusher comp??

    by the way you knobs, the correct, metal spelling is posEUR. i would think you would know this considering how much you love nitro.

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  15. How could you not know Repulsion? Uber-lame.

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  16. seventh son of a seventh son is the last ounce of talent maiden had before they went on auto-pilot, although it was one watered down bland ounce i don't care for much, too bad you couldn't find the somewhere in time tape. Now that's sustenance.

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  17. That Mayhem tape...it's a Greek bootleg. I also got a copy of it. I even knew the guy who arranged it. Long story. Ripped-off numerous labels/individuals and vanished into thin blue air. He even owned a record store back in the day so one could say he was an Athenian Wild Rags. Bought my first death metal CDs in that store, two Gorefest titles! and that particular tape later on:)

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