Author Archives: jakemanson
Weird Band of the Week: Impaled Northern Moonforest
Hey kids, it’s Weird Wednesday! Wait, it’s Thursday? Man, I really should write my Weird Band of the Week posts before I start drinking.
Anyways…this week’s weird band was suggested to us by a reader named Samuel, who noted that we had omitted the world’s first and greatest acoustic black metal band, Impaled Northern Moonforest. INM was started around 1997 as a joke by members of the band (and I’m really sorry for having to type this name) Anal Cunt, a grindcore group from Massachusetts. To the untrained ear, grindcore and black metal sound pretty similar, but the grindcore kids hate the black metal kids as only siblings can—especially when one of those siblings (black metal) is really into facepaint, Satanic imagery and flashy prog-metal guitar solos.
According to Impaled Northern Moonforest lore, the band was originally meant to be a full-blown black metal project, but it turned into an acoustic deal because another of the Anal Cunt (sorry!) guys was sleeping nearby and they didn’t want to wake him. We’re pretty sure INM’s lo-fi, acoustic approach—generally speaking, all their songs feature a single acoustic guitar, some knee-slap percussion and whispered/growled unintelligible vocals—is all part of the joke, but we’ll buy into the origin story, if only because it makes the guys responsible for such Anal Cunt (sorry!) classics as “Recycling Is Gay” and “You’re Old (Fuck You)” sound touchingly concerned for the well-being of their bandmates.
Impaled Northern Moonforest played only a handful of live shows, and won’t play any more, because Seth Putnam, lead singer for both INM and AxCx (which, it turns out, is the polite way to type “Anal Cunt”—wish I’d known that two paragraphs ago), died last year of an apparent heart attack at the age of 43. They seem to have recorded only one record, variously referred to as an album or demo, that exists in very limited quantities (that’s the cover above—yes, all their artwork is as primitive as their music). Most of their songs are barely a minute long, although it sometimes takes longer than that just to say their titles: “Bloodlustfully Praising Satan’s Unholy Allmightyness in the Woods at Midnight,” “Summoning the Unholy Frozen Winterdemons to the Grimmest and Most Frostbitten Inverted Forest of Abazagorath,” and my personal favorite, “Grim and Frostbitten Gay Bar.”
Maybe the greatest thing about Impaled Northern Moonforest is that a whole fan-driven mythology of “acoustic black metal” has sprung up in their wake. There are discussion forums, Last.fm genre memes, and even a bunch of other acoustic black metal acts like Sodomized by Satan, Nyhetsvarsel and Severed Colon. For some folks, acoustic black metal is a joke that never gets old.
There are also a handful of fan-made INM videos, of which this is the best, in our not-so-humble opinions. Seth Putnam, your legacy lives on.
Links:
Anklepants
(Photo by Maren Michaelis)
Ever since Daft Punk strapped on their cyborg motorcycle helmets, it seems like every electronic artist from Deadmau5 to the Bloody Beetroots has felt the need to liven up their act with some kind of crazy mask or helmet or headdress thingie. But how many electronic artists can you name with an animatronic penis where their nose should be? As of today, you can name one: Anklepants.
The man behind the Anklepants mask is Dr Reecard Farché, aka Josh Head, whose day job is working in the special effects industry, designing latex models, prosthetics and animatronics. His credits include Where the Wild Things Are, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and one of my favorite weird movies of all time, The Host, a Korean monster movie that you should Netflix this instant if you haven’t already seen it. (Seriously, stick that bad boy in your Netflix queue. I’ll wait.) His skills in this area explain how creepily lifelike Anklepants’ wrinkled visage is, as well as how his penis-nose is able to waggle around seemingly with a mind of its own (watch the video below, you’ll see what I mean).
But enough about Anklepants’ prosthetic schnoz. How’s the music, you ask? Well, that’s pretty fucking out there, too. If you cruise over to his Soundcloud page, you’ll hear some bizarre spins on techno, dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass with titles like “I Took Candy From a Baby” and (deep breath) “InsideyourfacedubstepbeanstalktoheavenfortheAtheist.” Dude’s definitely not coasting on his visual effects skills.
Anklepants’ live show looks pretty fun, too. He uses a custom cordless microphone with all sorts of buttons and presets that distort his voice in various interesting ways, and he seems to enjoy getting out from behind his gear to run around the audience, even when that audience is a bit scattered and obviously really confused by what they’re seeing.
So here’s the video for “[speak you little facehead],” which features Anklepants and his similarly faced sidekick (who also apparently sometimes doubles as a pole dancer at his live shows) tripping balls after devouring a bunch of plastic toys that have been melted in a microwave. Actually, we’re not really sure what’s going on in this video, but we’ve definitely never seen anything like it. Which coming from us is saying something.
Links:
- Anklepants on MySpace
- Anklepants on Facebook
- Anklepants/Reecard Farché on Bandcamp
- Anklepants on Soundcloud
- Qwerty Records official site (Anklepants’ label)
- Squat Club on Bandcamp (Josh Head’s prog-rock project)
Free music from Here Come the Mummies
(Photo by Dean Dixon)
The funky creatures from beyond the grave in Here Come the Mummies love you a lot. And to prove it, they’re giving away a five-song digital sampler…for free. You have to give them your email address, but we’re sure they’ll take good care of it. Head over to the HCTM website to claim your five-track bundle of mummified joy. I’m listening as I write this and all I can say is, if you crank this shit on Valentine’s Day, you are so getting laid.
In other Mummies news: They’re also offering five bucks off all CDs, T-shirt and digital downloads all this week. Their generosity knows no bounds, people!
We’ll play this one out with the new video for “Freak Flag,” featuring the excellent animation of Bobby’s Brane. We’re gonna boogie-oogie-oogie all night to this one. Emphasis on “oogie.”
Weirdest Band in the World on The Dinner Party Download
(Trippple Nippples photo by Rafael Rios, lifted from this Hearty Magazine feature)
Those Prairie Home Companion listeners won’t know what hit them. Yes, Weirdest Band in the World is about to become NPR-famous. My partner-in-crime Andy Hermann (formerly known as Eddie Argyle) is a guest on this week’s edition of The Dinner Party (formerly known as The Dinner Party Download). The Dinner Party is a popular public radio show and podcast that delivers an hour’s worth of news, pop culture, music, cocktail recipes (my favorite part) and foodie talk in the form of witty dinner party banter. And we’re crashing the party. Pass the irony, please!
Andy is featured in a segment called “The Guest List,” in which he talks about some of the past year’s weirdest bands: Hank3, Trippple Nippples, and Iwrestledabearonce. You can download the whole show (free!) in podcast form here (or get it from iTunes) and listen to Andy and samples from all three bands starting at around the 8:40 mark. But you should listen to the whole show, because it’s pretty great. Did I mention they talk about booze?
If you still live in the 20th century and happen to be in either Philadelphia or Los Angeles, you can also fire up your shortwave radio machine and catch The Dinner Party on WHYY-Philadelphia (90.9 FM) tonight (Saturday) at 9pm or tomorrow (Sunday) on KPCC-Los Angeles (89.3 FM) at 3pm. We’re told it’s also being broadcast in Seattle and “select cities in the Midwest,” which I’m gonna say means Dubuque, Fargo and Peoria, because those are my favorite Midwestern city names to say out loud. Oh, and Kalamazoo. We’re gonna be huge in Kalamazoo, bitches!
Andy tells me I should also mention that The Dinner Party is actually a production of American Public Media and not NPR, because they get touchy about that. Apparently those are two completely different organizations. Who knew?
The Zambonis
Full disclosure: I have never liked hockey. Maybe it’s because I grew up in upstate New York, where hockey was rammed down every boy’s throat like a puck made of broken teeth and bruises. And yeah, okay, I was forced to play in the Squirt and Pee Wee leagues, and I sucked. So that may have something to do with it.
But The Zambonis are almost great enough to make me a hockey fan. Almost.
Started way back in 1991 in Connecticut (R.I.P., Whalers), The Zambonis are the world’s only hockey-themed rock band. Now you might think this is a somewhat limited genre to work within, and frankly, you’d be right. But somehow, against all odds, these dudes are getting ready to release their sixth—sixth!—album, Five Minute Major (In D Minor), on Feb. 14th. Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Because nothing says romance better than songs like “I Got a Concussion (When I Fell for You).”
The Zambonis have built up a pretty decent following among puckheads over the years. They’ve played the NHL All-Star Game twice, written a theme song for the Boston Bruins (“To Bleed Black and Gold”) and even got their song “Hockey Monkey” used as the theme music for The Loop, a short-lived Fox sitcom. The illustrious Jonathan Richman once called them “a beach party on ice.” We like to think of them more as Weezer with mouthguards. They don’t take themselves or their music too seriously (how could they, really?), but most of it is catchy as all get-out.
Side note: Founding Zamboni Dave Schneider is something of a specialist in the art of Extremely Specific Rock Bands. He’s also the co-creator (with Adam Gardner of Guster) of The LeeVees, a band that only writes songs about Hanukkah. And no, it’s not actually all that weird to be both Jewish and into hockey.
Second side note: Believe it or not, the makers of the Zamboni® ice resurfacers actually sent a cease and desist to The Zambonis in 1998. After some legal wrangling, Zamboni® finally let The Zambonis license the name—and, we sincerely hope, granted their wish and finally let them drive an actual Zamboni.
Now, if you’re not already sick of all this hockey talk, why don’t you watch The Zambonis’ latest video, “I’m a Puck.” It’s got a cool sort of NRBQ/Brian Setzer/rockabilly vibe that we’re digging. Maybe it’s…puckabilly? (Ouch. Feel free to cross-check me into the boards for that one.)
Links:
Weirdify Playlist 3: Noise Ordnance
Hi, kids. Jake here, finally delivering y’all a playlist with some balls. Also, some power tools, Tuvan throat singing and field recordings of surgical procedures. That’s how I roll.
ShareMyPlaylists is thwarting me and not recognizing half these tracks, so here’s a direct link to the full playlist on Spotify. You’ll get 20 whole tracks of skull-crushing, ear-diddling insanity:
1. Lightning Bolt, “Assassins”
2. Fantomas, “Page 28″
3. Deerhoof, “The Great Car Tomb”
4. The Locust, “Who Wants a Dose of the Clap?”
5. Nimrod, “Ripsnort”
6. Arrington de Dionyso, “Susu Naga”
7. The Residents, “Smelly Tongues”
8. Captain Beefheart, “Skeleton Makes Good”
9. White Mice, “Passsthefissst”
10. Kylie Minoise, “Corpse Sex Show Outrage!”
11. Genocide Organ, “Genocide”
12. Iwrestledabearonce, “Alaskan Flounder Basket”
13. Yip-Yip, “California Fart”
14. Justice Yeldham, “300104 Hamburg”
15. Einsturzende Neubauten, “Negativ Nein”
16. Cabaret Voltaire, “News From Nowhere”
17. Cattle Decapitation, “Gestation of Smegma”
18. Goatwhore, “Sacrament of Emptiness and Despair”
19. Otto Von Schirach, “Septic Sewer Soup”
20. Matmos, “L.A.S.I.K.”
Management not responsible for lost or damaged hearing. Happy listening!
Die Antwoord on Letterman Monday night
Now here’s a sentence you probably never thought you’d read: Die Antwoord will be joining Giants quarterback Eli Manning as the guests tonight (Monday, Feb. 6th) on The Late Show with David Letterman. Set your TiVos, you fokken chommies.
In other zef rap-rave news: Ten$ion, the second album from Ninja, Yo-Landi and DJ Hi-Tek, arrives this week in all fine record shops and e-tailers. You can stream the whole thing here, but play nice and buy that shit, because Die Antwoord turned down a million bucks from Interscope Records so they could go indie and release the weird-ass record we were all hoping for.
They’ve also got some U.S. tour dates. We’ll see you out at that LA show gettin freeky.
02.09.12 – Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero Theatre
02.10.12 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
02.11.12 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
02.12.12 – Washington D.C. – 930 Club
02.14.12 – Toronto, ON – The Phoenix Concert Theatre
02.15.12 – Chicago, IL – Metro
02.18.12 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
02.19.12 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
02.22.12 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
02.20.12 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market
02.22.12 – San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
02.24.12 – Los Angeles, CA – Club Nokia
02.25.12 – Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
*We’ve since learned that Die Antwoord apparently plan to release Ten$ion only digitally and on Flash drives because, in their words, “CDs are like motherfucking VHS.” Truth! Lies! You can buy the motherfucking CD version here.
Update: The video from their epic, unsettling performance is now live. “There’s your Super Bowl halftime show!”
Iwrestledabearonce announce new tour dates
After spending much of the past year opening for bands named after classic American novels (Of Mice and Men, As I Lay Dying…maybe next they could open for The Dangerous Summer?), it’s about time those crazy kids in Iwrestledabearonce finally had some headlining shows of their own. So here they are! It’s the official IWABO “Road to Metal Fest” tour, coming soon to a landlocked city near you:
“Road To Metal Fest” Tour
4/16 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Conservatory
4/17 – Memphis, TN @ New Daisy Theater
4/18 – Knoxville, TN @ Valarium
4/20 – Springfield, VA @ Empire
4/21 – Worcester, MA @ The Palladium – New England Metal and Hardcore Festival
4/23 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Altar Bar
4/24 – Evansville, IN @ Boney Junes
4/25 – Bloomington, IL @ The Castle Theater
4/26 – Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews
4/27 – Iowa City, IA @ Blue Moose
4/29 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre
4/30 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
5/01 – Flagstaff, AZ @ Cinnabar
We’ll play this post out with the video for “You Know That Ain’t Them Dogs’ Real Voices” off IWABO’s latest album, Ruining It for Everybody, available now online and wherever they still sell CDs that don’t suck. Best. Children’s. Party. Ever.
Dir En Grey
(Photo: angst-im-wald)
What’s up, weirdos? Sorry I’ve been letting Andy hog the site lately with his weak-ass indie pop hipster shit. I promise we will tilt the balance back in favor of punk, noise and metal in the weeks ahead. (Organic veggie instruments, dude? Really? But I digress.)
This week’s band was suggested by a reader named Kurtis, who reminded us that there’s more to Japan than Lady Gaga wannabes wearing headdresses made out of popcorn. Japan has also produced its fair share of pretty extreme and seriously awesome metal over the years, and Dir En Grey is about as extreme and awesome as it gets.
Dir En Grey have been around since the late ’90s and changed both their look and their sound several times over the years (Japanese bands seem to get bored with staying in one genre for too long–see also, ironically, Boredoms). They started out as a “visual kei” band, which basically meant hard rock with lots of elaborate costumes, crazy visuals and music videos that were a mix of anime, goth and cyberpunk. They’ve since toned down their image a bit (hence the biker gang look seen above, circa 2007), but their music has, if anything, gotten weirder. Their latest album, Dum Spiro Spero, kind of sounds like Tool meets My Chemical Romance meets Queensryche meets Napalm Death: alt-metal, screamo, grindcore and prog rock all fighting it out like superheroes in a Japanese action comic, with lead singer Kyo’s crazy vocals (dude can death-growl with the best of them, then unleash an operatic falsetto close to Mike Patton’s) leading the way.
But where Dir En Grey’s weirdness really shines is in their videos, some of which are disturbing enough to make Rob Zombie sleep with the light on. You know how the original Ring was 10 times scarier than pretty much any American horror movie ever? Well, your average Dir En Grey clip makes Marilyn Manson look like Mr. Rogers. Warning: You may need to increase your Xanax dosage after viewing this.
Links:
New Die Antwoord track: “I Fink U Freeky”
Those hipster bastards at Pitchfork scooped us again. Today, they premiered “I Fink U Freeky,” a new track off the latest album from our favorite South African zef-rap-rave crew, Die Antwoord. “Freeky” is basically Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er’s version of a soccer techno anthem, with lots of Godzilla-sized synths and builds and breakdowns and whatnot. It’s what the Brits (and the South Africans, too?) call a huge choon, I believe. Or a right fokkin teef-grinder, innit?
Die Antwoord’s new album, TEN$ION, drops Feb. 7. Head on over to Pitchfork to hear “Freeky” and watch this space for more Die Antwoord news you can use.
