What will they think of next: Gut invents Electro pornogrind

I pretty much hate "grindcore" these days, but back in the day I used to listen to a lot of it, especially sleazy gore/pornogrind like Hemdale, Last Days of Humanity, Meat Shits, Dead, and of course the masters of the genre, Gut. I have mentioned them in previous posts, but I think it's time for us to have a more in-depth discussion about their unique brand of grindcore.

Gut were always pretty gross and over the top, never failing to shock with things like the cover of "Fistful of Sperm," which featured a dude's hand holding his cummy dick (lucky for you, I couldn't find a picture). But let's be honest, we've all seen a million gnarly porn and gore covers, so at this point it's pretty hard for that sort of thing to elicit much more than a disinterested yawn. True to form, though, Gut managed to find a new way to shock: inventing ELECTRO PORNOGRIND!

Pornogrind
I will assume that most Metal Inquisition readers are familiar with pornogrind. If not, I will direct you to this older MI post on pornogrind that will tell you everything you need to know. Gut is often credited with inventing the genre, which is distinguished from regular grindcore by it's emphasis on mid-paced groove riffs rather than blasting. If you are interested in exploring more bands in this genre like Vulvectomy, Cock and Ball Torture, etc, check out this blog.

Another trademark is many, many porn samples used as intros. Very, very long intros. If you have ever listened to Mortician you know what I'm talking about, only instead of 70s horror movies they're German porn flicks or whatever. I obviously have no fucking idea what they're saying if they're not in English, although I did once ask the German lady I worked with to translate a Gut intro for me. I gave her my headphones, and she listened intently for a few seconds. Then she got pale and said something like, "He wants her to act like a pig??" and gave them back.


Anyway, Gut wasn't content to sit back and rest on their laurels, basking in the adulation of critics who fawn over them for inventing this nearly universally-loved genre. They drew from another rich genre, electro, for inspiration.

OG electro pioneers Sleaze Boys' ode to, uh, Robocop? I'd buy that for a dollar!

Electro
I'm far from an expert on it, but I listen to a lot of dance music, especially electro and electrohouse. I don't really care about any specific artists or whatever because usually I only listen to it when I'm getting drunk with a girl. There's really nothing like it for putting them in the mood. It's like the Chappel Show sketch where as soon as a white person hears a guitar, they start dancing, only in this case as soon as hipster girls hears a rubbery synth line, her skinny jeans and American Apparel tube top melt right off her body. With Gut being huge creeps who watch too much porn, it makes perfect sense that they would also be big fans of the genre.

The soundtrack to getting fucked up and making out with hipster girls

Electro + Pornogrind = The Cumback
I love mash culture, don't you? Like when your friend from work or whatever is like "Dude yuo have to check out this new Radiohead/Simon Cowell yodeling in the bathtub mashup!!" and forces you to listen to every second of the excruciatingly long and dull extended version? "Fuck," you think, "where is my copy of 'Load'? I would rather snap the CD in half and jam one of the jagged pieces into my jugular vein than endure another second of this." But you don't, you just smile and nod politely and suffer through it. Then he asks you if you've ever seen this funny song about jizzing in your pants and you tell him you have to get back to work.

I am equal parts confused and aroused by this combination of imagery

In any case, electro pornogrind is like one of those mashups, only instead of being suicide-inducingly dorky, it's 100% awesome. Gut disappeared for a while, probably because one of the guys was busy living in his van and avoiding indecent exposure charges or something. We all figured they were gone, but they came back in 2006 with a new LP entitled "The Cumback," which also brought electro pornogrind into the world. Here are a few tracks from the album...

Pimps of Gore



This is a good place to start with electro pornogrind. It combines a beat guaranteed to get you on the dance floor (not unlike the plague that makes your booty move) with guttural goregrind vocals and a dope synth line! All it needs is a bangin' donk and it would be perfect. Oh, and they could get rid of the minute-long intro sample.

The Making of "The Cumback"


Would you like to throw away 9 minutes of your life? It doesn't seem like much, but I bet if someone put a gun in your mouth and asked what you would do to have 9 minutes more to live, you would do all kinds of fucked up shit to extend your life by the length of approximately 100 early Anal Cunt songs. But if you don't give a fuck and want to piss away 9 minutes, you can watch this video of Gut recording "The Cumback." I did. Twice.

Pimptro

This track showcases Ollie's microphone skills. It kind of reminds me of the corny MCs from 90s jungle songs that would be like "ALRIGHT YALL DIG THESE FUNKY CHUNES, REWIND SELECTAH!!" I seriously have no idea how I listened to that shit, it's intolerable to my ear now. Electrohouse is so much better, and drum n bass chicks usually had gnarly meth habits (not hot).

Gut on MySpace

Screamo crunk: A cultural primer

Navigating the choppy, uncharted waters of today's pop culture landscape can be a daunting task, especially for old people like us who grew up in simpler times. Fortunately for all of you, I am here to be your guide to the changing face of metal culture. Think of me as your sherpa, taking you by the hand and carefully leading you to the summit of Mt. Awesome. After we are done, you will no longer be scared and confused by contemporary youth culture!

Damn son, what you know about some MySpace hair??

Screamo crunk = express train to awesome town!
Just when you thought you had seen everything, along comes something new that reminds you that you haven't. For example, I recently discovered the strange and amazing world of screamo crunk! Who knew that there was a whole genre of music in which skinny white kids with scene hair alternately scream and rap over beats that are somewhere between indie dance and Southern bounce? I didn't until the other day, and now you do too!

FTSK poppin and lockin

Ancestors
Screamo crunk is the very post-modern intersection of trends in several, unrelated genres of music, all mashed up into something new. Depending on how you want to look at it, that either makes it all kinds of awesome or a giant shit sandwich- I will let you be the judge of that, though!

Emo/Screamo
Back in my day (the 90s), screamo was Gravity Records fall-on-the-floor-and-freak-out stuff like Heroin, Second Story Window, and John Henry West. Emo was its much poppier cousin, best embodied by bands like Promise Ring and Texas Is The Reason or whatever. The important thing to note here is that these bands were the first to start attracting pretty girls to shows. Naturally I thought they were completely gay at the time, but in retrospect I should have thanked them profusely! To his credit, Lucho Metales was way more into this stuff at the time than I was. But we also both liked Shelter, so what the fuck did we know?

18 Visions = eyeliner + leather pants + mosh

Hardcore
In the hardcore scene, bands like Unbroken and Undertow introduced moshcore kids to the idea of paying attention to your appearance, with their pompodores, creepers and tight jeans. It's easy to see how they started us down the road that gave us bands like Eighteen Visions and Bleeding Through, who pretty much took what they started and made it even more awesome!

Forever The Sickest Kids, my favorite nu-punk band!

The trend toward more polished, accessible songs continued, yielding a new crop of "nu-punk" bands that basically sound like Miley Cyrus with MySpace hair. Good examples are Cash Cash, Kill Paradise, Metro Station, Hellogoodbye, and other stuff your little sister probably listens to. I am pretty sure that our readers will be not even a little surprised that I love this shit! The big thing to note here is the incorporation of dance elements into the familiar powerpop/pop punk formula.

I'm your idol, the highest title, numero uno

Rap
Before I ever listened to punk, hardcore, or metal, I was into rap. This was in the late 80s, which was a pretty awesome time that brought us legends like Rakim, Special Ed, Gangstarr, Too $hort, and tons more that aren't necessarily legends but are at the very least good for lulz: K-Solo, King Sun, Lakim Shabazz, and Chub Rock. I still love that shit, but as we all know, rap is very different now. It's all about Southern party rap now, which is fine by me because there is honestly nowhere I'd rather be than drunk off my ass at the club with a girl and cutting a rug to some T-Pain, Akon, or Baby Bash.

If you meet a girl at Urban Outfitters, she secretly loves this song

Here is a little secret for all you single dudes out there: Indie girls who are 20-25 years old all love getting down to some commercial rap. Take her to the club, make sure both of you have a few drinks in you, and when Flo-Rida or Lil Wayne come on, I guarantee you she will be getting down and you will be getting lucky when you come home. The only tricky part is talking them into going to the club in the first place because they have to pretend like they don't want to go, in order to maintain their indie coolness. It can always be "ironic" if that's what it takes, like "Hey let's go to this club, but just for a joke so we can laugh at all the lame douchelords there." It won't be ironic anymore after you buy her a couple rounds.

Exemplars


Brokencyde
This is pretty much the epitome of screamo crunk and these kids are fucking awesome. I am 100% certain that the majority of MI readers will vomit with hatred when they watch this video, but I am pretty into it. Range Rovers, hot emo chicks in Forever 21 dresses, and alcohol?! What's not to fucking like?! They are on Kottonmouth Kings' label, Suburban Noize, which is pretty funny, although not as funny as Doug Carrion from Descendents being in KMK. Also, don't miss their Waking The Cadaver-inspired song "Bree Bree"! Also, these motherfuckers have 25 million plays on MySpace!



Hollywood Undead
MySpace phenoms Hollywood Undead round out the screamo crunk scene by filling out the scummier end of the spectrum. I mean, I think most of the people in this scene are pretty scummy (and I mean that in a good way), but these dudes seem particularly sketchy. Maybe not in the same league as Necro or Ezec/Danny Diablo, but who is?? Anyway this video is awesome, full of skanky strippers and alcohol. I'm pretty into it and it definitely reminds me of "the good old days" of hanging out at shady graffiti parties. Note the "Crazy Train" bassline in the song above.


Attack Attack
I love Katy Perry and I love mosh parts. This band combines the two into something impossibly sweet. Back in the dizzay when I was reading Metal Maniacs and Maximum Rock and Roll I would have never dreamed of a day when something like this would be possible, but guess what: it just happened, son!


3OH!3
These two douchebags from Colorado know how to spit some lyrics: "Shh girl, shut your lips. Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips" is great, but "X's on the back of your hands, wash them off in the bathroom to drink with the bands" is even better! Before you get your panties in a bind and call these guys homos, take 1 second to ask yourself how much hot indie ass they get, and repeat after me: DON'T HATE, CONGRATULATE!

DO WANT (note gold American Apparel tube top and awesome hair)

Conclusions
The main thing is, it makes me really angry that this scene didn't exist when I was a kid. Back in the suffocatingly PC 90s hardcore scene that I grew up in, our idea of fun was going to a vegan bake sale in some motherfucker's basement in Indianapolis or whatever (Guav, are you reading this)! Either that or go see Disembodied with Day of Suffering and get punched in the face by some asshole in a Brother's Keeper basketball jersey.

I'm seriously pissed off that I spent my 20s on hardcore and graffiti instead of getting drunk with hot girls who have awesome hair, and I wish there was fun shit like screamo crunk back then to give me a venue for fun. You see, in the 90s hardcore scene, we took everything very seriously- having fun was the worst sin you could ever commit!

As always, if you think I'm joking when I say that I love this shit, I promise you that I'm not. Look at my Last.fm charts if you want proof!

Rick Ta Life begins his hip hop career

OK, so this isn't technically metal, but it's close enough. And more importantly, if we didn't share this with the world, we'd be committing a crime against humanity so atrocious it would make Slobodan Milosevic and Darfur look like a McDonald's bounce castle... Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you legendary New York hardcore figure Rick Ta Life's rap debut!

Click here for his MySpace to hear his song!

I love hip hop. Before I was ever into punk, metal, and hardcore, I worshipped Special Ed, Gangstarr, Kool G Rap, Rakim, Slick Rick, Eazy-E, and all the other stars of Yo MTV Raps. I also love both shitty rap-metal (Limp Bizkit, Downset) and shitty metal-rap (Necro, Ill Bill, Goretex), but I have to draw the line here. This is below even Rick Ta Life's abyssmally low standards. He wouldn't even bootleg this on Back Ta Basics. I honestly think this is even worse than Insane Clown Posse! I never, ever dreamed that I would type that sentence, but I also never dreamed that Rick Ta Life would become an MC. Although I suppose after his stint as a jockey, nothing should be surprising.

In case you're not familiar with Rick, he has some background information that should be, uh, informative:

About NYHC King RTL
GOD IS MY CO PILOT ,MY SAVIOR,MY BROTHAZ FOR LYFE, I LUV YAS ROGER AF,JOE HC ,KING BETO, DREW STONE OG NYHC ,BOBBY BIOHAZARD-CHUMLEY DRI-KRIS MISSION ,BOB RILEY CHRIS POWER ,CRUCIFIED PETE OG SIB DAMIEN BURNZ ,LORD EZEC AKA DANNY DIABLO , EZRA THE GREAT OBHC ,PETEY PABBLO,,J SKAMZ, RICHIE KRUTCH, CRIMZN,JAY REASON,MARK BFL, B2K BFL,JOE HATE FTR,JOEY FTR RENO FTR,DANNY NSK -JEFF LOCKDOWN,CHAPPY UPSTATE,NICK D 141, ,MADBALL-,FOREVER TRUE REPRESENT NYHC 4 LYFE- STRENGTH INTEGRITY BROTHERHOOD ,DRUG FREE ,SXE, NO DRINK NO SMOKE

I am not sure if he suffered severe head trauma at some point in life or if he was born this way but I'm honestly suspicious that he is functionally illiterate. There is only one way to find out: if any of our readers in New Jersey have some spare time, please follow him to McDonald's and see if he orders from the picture menu. His seemingly arbitrary use of superfluous commas and dashes reminds me of a note you would find in the park that some crazy guy scrawled on the back of an Arby's bag. And who is "BOBBY BIOHAZARD-CHUMLEY"? Did he get married to some Mr. Chumley and hyphenate his last name because he didn't want to lose his identity? And "NO DRINK NO SMOKE"? Wow...

This is the hardcore version of Robb Flynn's Disease... so, so depressing. Oof.

As for his music, unfortunately we can't embed the song from his MySpace on here. Instead, we will demonstrate his vocal ability with this live performance clip:



I destroyed my 25 Ta Life records years ago, so I can't verify this right now, but I remember their songs having lyrics that were different than what he is singing above, which sounds to be "YUB YUB YUB!"

Anyhow, if you'd like to learn more about Rick, listen to what Ezec has to say about him in the legendary and incredibly awesome NYHC documentary. In the mean time, let's just hope that Rick can hook up with Dipset or Neptunes and get his hip hop career on the right track. At this point, even Swisha House would be a step in the right direction (by the way, swishahouse.biz is maybe the best domain ever registered!).

A brief survey of pornogrind

To me, most grindcore sounds like tuneless shit played by retards that don't have two brain cells to rub together. Which is exactly what it is. If there is any genre of music that has lower barriers to entry, I haven't come across it (although, as one of our readers pointed out, bedroom black metal comes close). In spite of the fact that grindcore makes me want to jam sharp objects in my eardums post-haste, I have a real soft spot for it's kissing cousin, pornogrind. Unlike grindcore, which emphasizes playing garbage as fast as possible, pornogrind places a premium on groove and actual songwriting. Plus, I never get tired of porn sample intros. I'm far from an expert on the genre (and who really wants to be?), but here are some of my favorites:



Meatshits
The Meatshits were my introduction to pornogrind, and what an introduction! I bought "The Ecstasy of Death" at the Tower Records in Bellevue, Washington when I was in high school, and to this day it's one of my favorite records in the genre. I still think they have the best song titles, far better than more ironic peers like Anal Cunt. For example: ""Bullshit Lottery", "Let There Be Shit", "Bobbing For Stools", "Cancerous Foreskin", "Dead Fag Quilt", and so on. (At the risk of being PC, I want to be perfectly clear that I am completely laughing at, not with, this stuff) "Sniper At The Fag Parade" is the most jawdroppingly, subhumanly retarded/brilliant thing I've ever heard. It's literally like what your 12-year old, white trash neighbor with fetal alcohol syndrome and severe head trauma would come up with if you gave him a microphone and a 4-track. Basically, I love the Meatshits because they represent the absolute bottom of the barrel of the human race! Listening to them makes me feel like I should be wearing a helmet when I leave the house.

There are lots of other great things about the Meatshits, like how every record has a song or two where he raps over a drum machine and corny Casio-style keyboards, but I've already gone on for too long. I could literally write volumes about how much I love the Meatshits, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Here is a link to download almost all their 7"s.


Cock And Ball Torture
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that CBT have probably listened to Gut once or twice, because they sound almost exactly the same. That's definitely not a bad thing, though, and the world could certainly use more Gut tribute bands. The only real difference is that CBT aren't quite as funny/clever, and I think they use a pitchshifter, which I am kind of philosophically opposed to. But they have massive, moshtastic riffs and the super thick production on their records really puts them over the top. If you like Gut, definitely check out CBT! The video above is pretty good, I especially like the part with the Pope singing.



Gut
Man, I never get tired of YouTube videos that put grindcore songs over silly, mismatched footage! For example the part in this video with Hulk Hogan playing guitar at :24, solid gold. In any case, Gut are perhaps the originators of pornogrind as we know it today. The Meatshits were first, but they more or less just played noisecore with porn lyrics and samples. Gut were the first band that I know of to play the slow, groove-oriented style that defines the genre these days. I think they also pioneered the concept of writing odes to various adult actresses. I totally appreciate this idea, but I feel like their taste in porn chicks is a bit dated, perhaps betraying their age. For example, writing songs about Jenna Haze and Aurora Snow in 2006? Come on dudes, get with the times and write some jams about Eva Angelina, Cody Lane, or Audrey Bitoni. Shit, I'll even settle for Next Door Nikki. What would be some truly next level shit (to borrow their phrase) would be a collabo with Johnny from In The VIP!

Which brings me to the other thing that sets them apart: they have a strong wiggerish element. Needless to say, I love this. For example, the list of influences from their MySpace:

Impetigo, Kool Keith aka Dr. Doom aka Dr. Octagon, Cryptic Slaughter, Repulsion, Notorious B.I.G., G.G. Allin, Lord Of Putrefaction, Macabre, Ol´ Dirty Bastard, Detroit Grand Phubas, old Xysma, Ulcerous Phlegm, very old Demilich, Blowfly, Mike Jones, Gorilla Biscuits, Mehr Kohle Atzen, Interment, S.O.D., Blasphemy, Malediction, Necro, Skateboy P., Righteous Pigs, old KKS, old D.R.I., old Pungent Stench, old Celtic Frost, N.W.A., Gucci Crew II, Autopsy, Bobby Digital, Unseen Terror, old Carcass, Bun B...

On their newer records, they have some songs that are as much rap as they are metal (like "Gigolo Warfare"). It sounds like a terrible idea but I honestly think it's their best stuff! Other good rap songs include "How Low," "Three Handsome Guys" and "Next Level Shit." It's definitely an unlikely combination, but wigger-porno-rap-grind might be my favorite new genre of music. That said, I love wiggerish influences as much as anyone, but I have to draw the line at Bun B, Silkk The Shocker, and Ludacris! Yuck.

Anyhow, make sure you hop on their Myspace and check out their stuff, especially "Gigolo Warfare." If I had to pick a favorite pornogrind band, it would definitely be Gut. If I'm ever in Germany I want to hang out with these guys, they seem like a fun, chatty bunch! But what do I know, I'm listening to New Found Glory as I type this.

DEAD live at Obscene Extreme Festival 2005

Dead
Aside from having a very difficult-to-Google name, Dead is yet another German pornogrind band that's very much in the vein of Gut. Like CBT, they play extremely thick, groovy moshgrind with pit riffment to spare! They have particularly catchy songs, though, so if you like this style, you definitely won't go wrong with Dead.

Dead on Myspace