Depressing trends in metal: Cardboard Guitars

Based on the first part of the title of this post ( Depressing trends in metal ), you probably thought that it was going to be about black metal bands wearing corsets and looking like extras in The Matrix. Perhaps you thought it was about guys at death metal shows growling as though they were auditioning to be in the band. Maybe you thought it was about Robb Flynn's disease. As you can see by the rest of the title, however, it's not.

As it turns out, none of these trends compares to the ultimate, and most depressing trend ever. Cardboard guitars. You read right my friends, cardboard guitars. Turns out, they were a crucial part of the NWOBHM scene, and luckily for us, the BBC was there to document this unbelievable moment in metal history, and the great cast of characters that surrounded it. By "unbelievable" and "great" I actually mean "pathetic" and "dry-heave inducing". It all started with a cardboard guitar being used as a prop in a contest to see who was the best headbanger. No, I'm not kidding. When you watch the video, note the guy towards the end of the clip who is all pissed off because record labels wanted to give away cardboard guitars rather than letting headbangers make their own. The outrage!

Watch, be amazed, and depressed by it all. By the way, I would pay top dollar to find out where the main guy who is interviewed in this documentary is today. The poor dope has the personality of a dead moth...so I'm sure he went on to excel in the world of business, so he's probably a C level executive at a major corporation. The strong manner in which his voice projects, and his birdlike physique are the signs of a man with an unbelievable drive and vision. Just listen to him at the end, where he decides that he's too old to learn how to play the guitar, so perhaps he's better off excelling at pretending to play a cardboard guitar. It's like he invented Guitar Hero, he was so ahead of his time!



Watching this video makes me wonder if this is how the rest of the world saw my brother and I many yeasr ago as we toiled away making our (just as depressing) plywood bass guitar. It was a 5 string bass, by the way, since we couldn't decide if we wanted a guitar or a 4 string bass. We compromised on a 5 string bass with a whammy bar.

Kids Playing Metal (aka: Asian kids can play "Crazy Train" at an earlier age than non-Asian kids. Science says so.)

Yup, it's true. The reason why many of you weren't able to play "Crazy Train" when you were six is because you're not Asian. Don't believe it? Science says so. You see, Asian languages rely heavily on tonal differences, which lead Asian children to have absolute pitch (aka perfect pitch) more often than non-Asian kids. Watching this video makes me so jealous.



Note: After "Crazy Train", the video gets decidedly un-metal, unless you consider Eric Clapton Metal.

Compare that to this American kid playing Slayer. I know I sound like a jerk for making fun of him, but please compare the two. At first, you think the kid's double bass skills are pretty good. But then it starts to sound like a sack of potatoes falling down a set of steps.

In all these videos, you can almost see the parent aiming a gun at the kid, forcing him to play. Poor kids, destined to live out their stupid father's failed dreams of rocking out. At least the kids will have YouTube proof for their therapists one day.





But worry not Americans, this kid comes in and saves the day. He's also an aspiring Lombardo, but manages to play much better than the previous kid. Yes, his triplets need a little work, and he's a bit sloppy at times...but Lars Ulrich only wishes his playing was this tight. There is hope for the US of A after all.

Shitty metal logos get props from the shitty design community

We all know what fags designers are, right? Fashion designers, industrial designers (I know they sound tough, but they aren't) and, of course, graphic designers. Graphic designers are the dickless shits responsible for the UPS trucks being that ugly-ass brown and for those uber-gay ipod ads. Yeah, yeah, you're cool. You know how to push a few buttons in some crappy Adobe program and you think you are better than the rest of us. I know a few graphic designers here and there and, believe me, they actually think that what they do is important. I'm not kidding. With the exception of actors, graphic designers are the most narcissistic, arrogant, big headed, proud, conceited, immodest, vain, self-important, self-satisfied, self-righteous and self-involved people in the planet. Don't believe me? Go to a bookstore and check out the graphic design section. There are hundreds and hundreds of books by designers for designers about design. They think that what they do is so vital that the world needs book after book about design. In reality, they just wanna make themselves feel better about sitting in front of an over priced ibook making pretty pictures all day.

One of these books caught my eye recently and it illustrates just how out-of-touch these black-turtleneck-wearing fags really are. The book is called "BAND ID- The Ultimate Book of Band Logos". Wow! We're lucky it's the ultimate one. See? Even in their book titles they exaggerate their importance. Anyway, this collection was put together by this dude named Bodhi Oser. He's basically a hippie looser from Venice Beach, who wouldn't last a second in a serious Biohazard pit. So, what does he know about metal? Nothing, but the combination of his ignorance and his self-righteousness make for a funny-ass book.

I know the pics are blurry and crappy, but I "borrowed" the book from this dude in my office while he was in the crapper, so I was short on time, y'know?




I can see why designers would like this logo. It's sorta symmetrical and shit, but that "L" looks like an "S" with down syndrome. I still can't get over the thought of some trendy faggy designers sitting around a conference room table discussing whether or not the Death Angel logo would "make the cut". It's just fucking preposterous.




I always loved the Anthrax logo. I'm not sure why. Maybe 'cuz it's not symmetrical, like the other thrash metal logos of the time. The Nuclear Assault logo is chuck-full-o-horribleness. I find the "E" and the double "SS" offensive on grounds of really bad typographical balance.


Emperor and their shitty logo, with skinny Ethiopian letters, can suck my balls. So can Mortiis. I'm sure he did the logo himself. God, it's as terrible as his "music". On a more positive note, Death's logo is bad-ass. Sure, the "T" is three times thicker than the rest of the letters, but it's a cross! Upside-down? Not really. It's a mystery, just like why the band started to suck shit after Leprosy. I love the Napalm Death logo, simply because it's obvious the original was rendered by a 16 year old using a ball-point pen.



Obituary and Venom are two of the radest logos in the book and they share a page! Wait, maybe the author knew something about metal after all... Nah, beginner's luck.



BARF! This whole page is shit. The Moonspell logo would be cool if the letters were fatter and more manly, but I guess that's something black metal knows nothing about, huh? My Dying Bride's logo looks like Micheal J. Fox drew it.



Cradle of Filth and Hatebreed suck, fuck'em. I probably stand alone here, but I love Pungent Stench, therefore my judgement on their logo is biased. I have the Been Caught Buttering t-shirt and I wear it all the time to this very day.



Hahaha! Overkill shares the page with a whole bunch of other shitty bands!



Morbid Angel's logo has probably won multiple awards in the design community as the shittiest logo in history. And that probably included the "logo" from "Tacos Pedrito", a tiny taqueria by my house. God, look at that "A"! It's as painful as their music! The "G" holding the pitchfork has to be the worst use of a letter form since cuneiform was invented in 3000BC.
Dark Throne's looks like it was done in ink and they left it outside when it was raining. In a Norwegian forest, of course.




I like Entombed's logo and I think Carcass' looks like a used tampon. The Chasm, Usurper and Hate Eternal's logos were designed to give Morbid Angel's a run for it's money. Congrats guys, you almost made it.



I don't know what to say about this page, other than: WTF!? Municipal Waste? I'm pretty sure Seth Putnam never thought that his retarded doodles of assholes and vaginas would end up in a book about logos. Hmmm... Nox needs to... I don't know what they need to do, but whatever it is it should be funny and make them disappear. Forever.



The only good thing about the Scorpions logo is that I could re-create it on my shitty PC as a kid by just using a pre-loaded font. Other than that this page is pretty rad. Maiden, Priest, Annihilator and Testament. Solid bands, solid logos.


If I had real testicles when I was 15, all 3 of these logos would be tattooed on my body. Thank God I didn't grow balls until I was 20! Well, I don't think the Obituary tattoo is much better.



Another 3 logos I'd tattoo on my body. The Exodus one is a little weak, 'cuz the "E" and the "S" are all slouched, but it's still pretty metal. Kreator and Destruction logos adorned every other page in my notebooks in school for years.



I'm not sure what to make of the little bat flying over the Kind Diamond logo, but other than that KD's is a classic logo and, like their music, way better than Merciful Fate's. I know I'm gonna get the typical "you don't know what you're talking about, MF rule." blabber. Save it, MF sucks.



You know what doesn't suck? Slayer logos. It's tough to judge the logo of such an awesome metal band without allowing their awesomeness get in the way of your judgement, but the sword pentagram is SO bad-ass that just drawing it makes you more metal. The newer one they used on "Seasons" sucks. It's basically a font. It's called Ironwood. It fucking sucks.


Hmmm... I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you all that I'm a graphic designer

Dark Throne - Unplugged

Sometimes we can gain a deeper understanding of art by simply taking in a fresh interpretation of a well known piece. Consider, if you will, the multiple acoustic versions of Dark Throne's "Transilvanian Hunger" available to us through the magic of youtube.




There's nothing about a chubby, latino dude wearing a sweet baja sweatshirt that says "black metal"




Dude, you should be picking at twice the speed. Burzum shirt and Metallica shorts? Go make your bed. And then tune your guitar.



Okay, this guy is plugged in. Seriously, do you need the sheet music in a stand to play this song? His mom is gonna be so pissed about him putting his feet up on that tasteful ottoman. Nice zippers on his pants too. Sexy.



This guy got straight up fancy with the arrangement. He made the song suck even more. He's like the Dave Matthews of black metal.



This guy knew he didn't look very metal. So he spared us the visual.




Rolling Stones poster? I know metal sir, and you are not metal. I can just picture his mom crying about the fact that this is what her looser son has turned out to be.

The Great Kat—Video Roundup

What can I possibly say about the Great Kat that these clips can't say for themselves. The Long Island native (figures) went to Julliard (something that EVERY bio, set of liner notes, or write-up had to remind you of, probably due to strict orders from her managment) and went on to terrorize America's ears with the dumbest shtick ever...playing classical music at high speeds. She's still at it, believe it or not. She even did a nice patriotic video post 9-11, which you can see below. My friend once saw her live and said that all thirty people in attendance were made to go on stage and worship her on their knees for her song "Worship Me Or Die"....ugh. I remember metal dudes saying she was hot stuff back in the day. Oh boy. Maybe the liked awful yellow teeth. They probably thought Lori Bravo was hot stuff too. Much like the Predator vs. Alien argument, which was only settled once the movie was made, the Great Kat vs. Lori Bravo argument is as old as time itself. Sadly, it can only be settled by doing a movie about it...and Hollywood is not taking Kat's calls.

I picture her today, working at a car wash in Long Island, mumbling to herself as she scrubs down a guido's Escalade "worship me or die, worship me or die, worship me or die". She probably cries herself to sleep alot.

Cannibal Corpse + Guitar Hero

Perhaps everyone has seen this already, but this is a video of a guy who hacked/programmed (not sure what word to use) his PS3/Guitar Hero 2 to play Cannibal Corpse's "Shredded Humans." I think the song is mislabeled on screen by the game, because he used a slot for an existing song within the game. Makes me wonder what happens if you stop playing the controller, or hit the wrong note. Does all the music go silent? I mean, I'm sure he didn't get the master tapes from Cannibal Corpse so he could isolate the guitar tracks. Nahmean?