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

When will you ever learn?

How about we start with this?



This kind of sets the tone for this post.

But then again, I am not really sure how to write about this movie. You see, it is kind of a favorite of mine. The sort of real 80s metal in “film” type of crap that sends dorks like me to the basement to watch on a shitty VCR. So why is it so awesome? Well, one reason and one reason only, THOR! Normally I would say he is a turd, but this is the only thing he has ever done that people actually like, and I am not counting his music because only Seth Putnam likes that. (That last part is true, Seth used to bid big, and by big I mean $1 on many Thor items on Ebay back in the late 90s/early 00s, lucho remembers I am sure.)

So, overall the theme of the movie is giving Thor a place to act. That is really all there is too it. He wrote a little of it and stars in it as an archangel. This makes me think that Putnam wrote it because only he could think of Thor as some heavenly figure.

Now...on to the battle.



Seems innocent enough. Kind of like a weird midwestern boy trapped in Canada.



Women are truly evil. Here is proof. Or they might be puppets. I am not sure what this means.



A knife and a cigarette? Maybe these are scary to Canadians. I don’t know. I am not a fan.



He is just so pissed off. This is like telling a retarded kid to make an angry face.



Well, cometh the man, cometh the scared puppets.



Director: “Give it a good hug, because we ran out of glue. The key grip was too busy huffing.”



I have no words. Is the devil taking advantage of Thor?



Fight is almost over, or is this a dance?


All that aside, you need to watch this. It is a good representation of what was so completely awesome about the 80s. A time when anything was truly possible. Shitty puppet Satan. Some odd fraggle rock puppets that are supposed to be demons? Ghouls? Who knows. The one has a pretty good smokers cough. Hair and then some really creepy bare-chested man vs. puppet action.



When will we ever learn?

This is our neighborhood!

This rare gem of an audio clip, found on WFMU's site, brings us a short performance of the infamous A.C. with some clever Seth Putnam vs audience banter. Apparently some chick in the crowd doesn't know how to take a joke. If she can't take the brutality of seeing A.C. maybe she should have stayed at home to listen to some hippie crap like CRASS or Santana. You can hear what only appears to be Seth berating various show goers and a girl crying. All very funny. He also tries to start another song midway through the girl bellyaching about how he must hate womyn.

Lesson learned: People in California do not seem to enjoy fun.



Info is as follows:

"LIVE AT NIGHTBREAK S.F. CA 8-/6/93" by Anal Cunt

A live set that lasted for about 3 minutes followed by an argument between singer Seth Putnam, the audience, and a girl Seth had just hit in the face with a microphone...Seth spent that night in jail.