Luigi's Mansion

On this day, let us pay tribute to the marvelous people of Italy. As a culture, their contributions to the evolution of art, food, architecture, government, transportation, music and womanly beauty are immeasurable. Some of the finest people I've ever known have been at least part Italian - in fact, the best friend I ever had was 100%. But of course, this is all leading to another cinema discussion.

Yessir, that Fellini sure could conjure indelible images and complex emotions. That Leone had a painterly eye that made his eerie westerns transcend national borders. That Argento used to make really strange, beautiful symphonies of violence and madness. That De Sica seriously made you feel like you were trudging around looking for a damned bicycle for an hour. That Pasolini really liked Jesus, the proletariat and big wangs. But I'm looking further down the well, where you can find names like Luigi Montefiori and Enzo G. Castellari. I bought myself four movies on Feb. 14, which combined somehow cost less than half of what I spent on the holiday last year. Why shouldn't that make me forlorn?

"Antropophagus" (aka "Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper") - For 25 years, the only way you could see all of Joe D'Amato's infamous slasher flick in America was on an overpriced, cobbled-together VHS bootleg. I broke down a few years back and rented Monterey Home Video's heavily edited 82-minute pan-and-scan version ("The Grim Reaper"), but it was seriously unsatisfying and the tape was almost completely degenerated. This was going to be one of my first purchases when I finally got around to getting a region-free DVD player. Yet while going through the potentially wrist-slitting process of buying my own Valentine's Day presents, I instantly brightened when I came across this Shriek Show set, and my reaction probably freaked out nearby shoppers when I saw the unbelievable $10.99 price tag. The flick's reputation is undeniable - it and its semi-sequel, "Absurd," were alphabetically at the top of Great Britain's list of "video nasties", and even today, the import specialists at Xploited Cinema report that copies of this very DVD are being confiscated by Australian customs. This smoke, however, does not signal fire. "Anthropophagus" (the *proper* spelling is up for debate) is certainly one of the better-made D'Amato pictures I've seen, with attractive cinematography reminiscent of Sergio Salvati's and more legit atmosphere than you'd expect from a horror movie set on a sun-dappled Mediterranean isle; it's not as boring and artless as many have claimed. It stars Tisa Farrow, better known as Mia's rattier sister and as the female lead in Fulci's "Zombi 2." Other familiar mugs include Zora Kerova, the girl who got hooks stuck through her boobs in "Cannibal Ferox," and Italian low-budget actor/writer/director/gadabout Luigi Montefiori (credited here with his frequently-employed, clever pseudonym, George Eastman) as Niko, the cannibal killer of the title. In a flashback, we see that he went nuts after he killed and ate his son and wife while adrift at sea, and now he holes up in an old mansion feasting on intruders. Tisa, Zora and a bunch of unsympathetic asshats land on his island, and he fucks them up. There's your plot. It's entirely the gore that created the "Anthropophagus" legend, and the effects are quite good except for the opening cleaver-in-the-face, the "trick" camerawork during which is the most inept I've seen since the pitchfork scene in "Fear No Evil". Some of the more infamous gross-outs include Niko yanking out a lady's fetus and taking a big bite (it was a rabbit), as well as feasting on his own entrails after he gets jabbed in the gut by a pickaxe. There's also a nicely-depicted hanging suicide and an effective sequence where Niko pulls a girl up through a hole in the roof by her hair, and her face gets shredded by splinters... you can see the skin peeling off in great detail. But is it worthy of bans and all that? Honestly, no. Although it hails from a time and place that produced some of the goriest, most outlandish horror films in history, one only need to look at any single movie by Jörg Buttgereit to see that "Anthropophagus." is not the sickest nor most disturbing picture ever made. It's still not a good first date movie, unless it's a first date with someone uncommonly cool. I was far less disappointed than I thought I would be.

"2019: Dopo la caduta di New York" (aka"2019: After the Fall of New York") - The cluster of post-apocalyptic action flicks produced in Italy during the early '80s is a real hole in my education, so I was pleased indeed that Shriek Show offers this and the following two flicks as a low-priced package. First off, the score by Oliver Onions is really cool, a dated, chilly synth job reminiscent of Simonetti's "Tenebre" or Frizzi's "Zombi 2" sound. This is a movie by Sergio Martino, the hack behind such undistinguished titles as "Screamers" (which had one of the best, most misleading exploitation ad campaigns ever) and "The Scorpion with Two Tails", as well as the mysteriously well-regarded "Torso". This one's a straight-up "Escape from New York" rip-off, with a dude comissioned to find the last fertile woman on the continent, who is holed up somewhere in a ruined future version of the Big Apple overrun by the villainous European/Asian/African union (with the cute moniker of Eurac). The dubious hero, played by scuzzy-looking Eurotrash model Michael Sopkiw, is named Parsifal, but that's the classiest it gets. He starts the movie by winning a souped-up post-nuke vehicle race, for which he earns cash and a curvy, dark-haired Italian lady who totally wants to bang him. Parsifal's first mistake is ditching the brunette when he starts his quest. His second is his ludicrous jacket, the arms of which I think are supposed to be made of chain mail but look more like part of a thick gray sweater. His third is hooking up with a bony blonde rebel chick while spurning the advances of an insanely hot Eurac bad girl. (His fourth would be getting back together with the skinny dame for Lamberto Bava's awful "Devil Fish", but that's another story.) So Parsifal, the anorexic and a couple of warrior dudes duke it out with various fall-out victims and Eurac toughs, and lots of heads are demolished in the process. They enlist a friendly dwarf and Big Ape, the real star of the show. He's the silk-shirted leader of a simian-human colony and played by good old Luigi Montefiori, looking even hairier and smellier than he did in "Anthropophagus." When the good guys finally find the girl who can spawn, kept alive and disease-free by her scientist pop in a cheap hibernation chamber, Big Ape gets a big hard-on, and it is implied that he possibly introduces her sleeping teen birth canal to Little Big Ape (offscreen). With lots of gleeful ass-kicking and general mayhem, weird characters, cheesy locations, hilarious dialogue, laser guns that make wicked noises and post-apocalypse-street-punk girls with little to no hair, "2019" is a no-brain winner. It's easily the best Sergio Martino movie I've seen, which isn't saying much.

"1990: I guerrieri del Bronx" (aka "1990: The Bronx Warriors") - "MST3K" fans are probably familiar with "Escape From the Bronx," the sequel to this minor classic which was mocked there under the alternate title "Escape 2000". At the center of both is a man named Trash, which we can assume is not his Christian name. Trash is a wispy goon, looks like a member of Bang Tango and here leads a gang of bikers who all seem a lot tougher than himself, surviving in a "future" version of the Bronx which has degenerated into the bad kind of anarchy since the cops gave up on it. Like "2019," the plot for "1990" is snagged from John Carpenter's "Escape From New York," but also spiced up with the grungy flash of "The Warriors." On his surreal commentary track, director Enzo G. Castellari claims he had not seen Walter Hill's gang warfare epic at the time, but someone on the crew must have. Trash goes head over heels for Ann, a mousy lass played by the director's daughter, who happens to be the daughter of some sort of arms magnate played by the director, and since Ann's not thrilled about taking over the family business she just shacks up with Trash and his swastika-sporting pals. The weapons company hires a sleazy cop to get the girl back, a dude called Hammer who is portrayed by Vic Morrow, who was actually born in the Bronx and was killed shortly after wrapping "1990" on the set of "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Hammer makes his move by trying to stir up trouble in Trash's gang, but then Ann gets nabbed by a rival clan of kung-fu hockey players on roller skates. Further complicating things is the presence of the "real" Hammer, the mighty Fred Williamson, chomping cigars and busting heads as The Ogre, leader of yet another gang. On the commentary track, when the interviewer brings up the "Hammer" coincidence, Castellari simply responds with a chuckle and an enthusuastic, "Yeah!" (This equally baffling and hysterical exchange occurs frequently during the commentary's duration. My guess is Enzo's got lousy English or he was hitting the vino.) Anyway, Trash and The Ogre have some history, and once they figure out someone's playing them, they team up to battle their way through your typical NYC wasteland populated with colorful hoodlums. A charmingly wooden pair they make. In his lengthy and very entertaining supplemental interview, Williamson reveals that Mark Gregory, who inhabited the role of Trash for two whole movies, is gay, and that his rigid-yet-fey demeanor was the result of being coached to walk and move in a butchier manner than was natural for the guy. The Ogre, on the other hand, isn't as catatonic, but if you've ever seen Fred Williamson beat someone up in a movie, you know how unconvincingly stiff the guy is, although as always he makes up with an arsenal of hilarious action-hero faces. He's got a tall blonde girlfriend in a hot outfit with a cape, the sort of dominatrix/fantasy-villainess duds I strongly believe Condoleeza Rice should don at all times to accentuate her evil sex appeal. The Ogre's final battle against the leader of the roller skate mafia - none other than Luigi Montefiori! - is amazing, but he and his gang are wiped out by Hammer and a squad of fascist flamethrower-wielding cops. With everyone he cares about dead, Trash rides into the sunset dragging Hammer's dying body, capping a series of mini-climaxes. Overall, "1990" is not as great as I was led to believe, but it's still a fun diversion. As a footnote, both it and "2019" show the World Trade Center towers as damaged yet still standing... at least it's plausible in this one, as it was set in the far-off future of 1990.

"I Nuovi Barbari" (aka "The New Barbarians"/"Warriors of the Wasteland") - Another Castellari special, this one made for the same producer as the "Bronx" duo (Fabrizio De Angelis, the moneyman who financed "Dr. Butcher, M.D." and most of Lucio Fulci's finest pictures), but with a fraction of the budget. The star of this "Road Warrior" wannabe is one Giancarlo Prete, a bland, square-jawed Italian who kinda looks like Mad Max if you squint real hard. As Scorpion, he roams around the bombed-out rubble of civilization, doing whatever in a bitchin' car with all sorts of weapons and gadgets popping out and an observation bubble that glows green at night. To match, he has a glowing translucent tent, which he shows off while he's porking an injured lady he picks up. Right there, we know Scorpion's smarter than Parsifal - his passenger is none other than Anna Kanakis, the smokin' Eurac girl the hero turned down in "2019." Anna's a former Miss Italy who, according to Castellari's somewhat more coherent commentary track, got the part because she was married to composer Claudio Simonetti. (The Goblin keyboardist did the score here, though it's not exactly his best work.) Fred "The Hammer" Williamson lends his magnificent mustachioed mug to Nadir, a lone wolf archer in a silly outfit who occasionally pals around with Scorpion. He follows his pal and his new squeeze around for a while, which is pretty creepy, especially when he hides in the shadows while they're humping. Eventually Nadir helps Scorp out of a jam with his trusty exploding arrows, and they hang together until they meet an outpost of folks who believe in something called "God" and are following a guy named Moses through the desert. Oh, those Italians love their Bible! You know the Templars, a squadron of violent, insane, queer nihilists laying waste to the wasteland, are the bad guys when their leader, One (yet again, the versatile Luigi Montefiori), tears a Good Book in half. Sporting shoulder pads and horrible hairdos, these men's men are the "barbarians" of the title, wiping out all breeders they encounter and hunting Scorpion to ingratiate themselves with their bewhiskered Tom-of-post-fallout-Finland boss. At one point, they kidnap Scorp and One tells him, "You didn't want to live like a Templar, but you're going to die like one!" One then proceeds to ass-rape the movie's hero, which is apparently the Templar initiation rite. (While the intention of making the baddies blatantly gay may or may not be evidence of raging homophobia on the filmmakers' part, I've got to admit this is not something that would happen in an American action movie.) Meanwhile, Nadir's been one-upping ol' Parsifal himself by shacking up with Iris Peynado, the hypnotically-eyed Dominican hottie Michael Sopkiw ditches to hook up with the blonde coatrack from "2019" in "Devil Fish." Nadir rolls off of Iris long enough to rescue Scorpion again, then the pair prepares for the inevitable Templar rumble by enlisting a child mechanic played by the ugly, big-toothed kid from Fulci's "House by the Cemetery" and "Manhattan Baby." The big showdown involves lots of explosions, which are exceptionally numerous in this movie, and Scorpion gets his revenge on One by reenacting the original cover of Pantera's "Far Beyond Driven" with the big drill on the front of his car. Order restored, Nadir heads off to plow his lady and Scorpion is reunited with his... well, they acknowledge each other, anyway. "Barbarians" actually ends with Scorpion taking the hand of the little blond boy, not having actually addressed poor Anna Kanakis. Before you can say "bizarre love triangle," it's over. Hooray!

This here quiz is interesting, in that it determines its answers by asking you questions unrelated to the output. For me, the results seem pretty accurate except the last one, as anyone who has been around me over the past year should know...

Your Love Life Secrets Are...

Looking back on your life, you will only have one true love. You're a little scarred from your past relationships, but who isn't? You expect a lot from your lover - you want the full package. You tend to be very picky. In fights, you are able to walk away and calm down. You are able to weather the storm. Break-ups can be painful for you, but you never show it. You hold your head high.

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

Finally... something American (a piece on rawkers Every Time I Die) and something Swedish. I believe this is the first video Katatonia's ever made. It is awesome.

Reality blows

The absolute worst band description I've read in a press release lately: "Take Jimmy Eat World and stir in a little James Taylor, add a little Get Up Kids and top with a pinch of Phil Collins and out comes Brighten. They are rock and roll boys that you can take home to mom." Man, motherfuck these emo geeks. God.

When I was a wee lad, I had a lot of dreams and nightmares. They were always pretty intense, feeling very real while they were happening. Then came the turning point, a short stint of codeine-inspired night terrors I got during my senior year of high school (five impacted teeth removed + pharmacist dad = weeks of free, sort-of-legal high). I haven't had a whole lot of dreams since, good or bad or even just weird, and they never came sequentially until a few weeks ago.

For four days in a row, I had all sorts of weird/bad sleepytime visions. It was a fairly unsettling development, although I was loathe to ascribe any meaning to it. It sorta made me feel like a kid again. I was even waking up, chowing down a big bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch and watching cartoons. Then I won $75 at the Super Bowl party, and voila! The bad dreams were gone. Or so I thought. I've actually had three since, most recently Friday night. Now it's starting to flip me out a little, and I'm sure more free money won't solve it. (If you'd like to find out, contact me.)

Been on a documentary kick lately, and haven't even seen the penguin or wheelchair rugby ones yet. I think I want to feel more productive when cheesing in front of the set, so these have helped by providing visual stimuli in the guise of "learning" something. Some highlights:

"Lost In La Mancha" - Chronicling Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempt to turn Cervantes' windmill-tilting classic into "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," a film for modern international audiences, this is one sad, amazing story. Gilliam invited the team who filmed the long making-of doc for "12 Monkeys" to follow his production, and the dudes obliged, seeing it as a potentially perfect pairing of filmmaker and subject. "Quixote" is not as popular a saga in America as in Europe, so the financing had to come from a consortium of continentals, who for such an elaborate production could collectively still not match the budget of your typical Hollywood romantic comedy. Unfortunately, the project quickly spun out of control, with aging French star Jean Rochefort taking ill, personnel conflicts on the set, outrageous costs, natural disasters and several other factors leading to the film being shut down after only six days of filming. Perhaps "Lost" is best characterized by a scene where the "Quixote" movie's sets are demolished by a brutal flood as the documentary crew films the destruction, safe inside a car, likely conflicted that the film they're documenting is falling apart while their own film gains new focus as an "unmaking-of." The most heartbreaking aspect is watching Gilliam's demeanor transform from giddy overconfidence to creeping despair as he comes to understand his film will not happen, despite the valiant efforts of his crew, whose beautiful costumes and props are now rotting away somewhere. The small bits of footage created for "Quixote" look very nice - one of the hopes for putting this out there is that it will build sympathy for Gilliam, and that one day he will finally make this film. Seeing this only increased my respect for the man (and intended co-star Johnny Depp, who says he's ready to start again whenever Terry says the word)... after "Lost In La Mancha" and "The Battle of Brazil", the story of an ambitious dreamer hamstrung by harsh reality truly fits Gilliam's career. Go rent "The Brothers Grimm", dammit; it's much better than you've heard.

"Slut" - Only 45 minutes, but this Sundance Channel dealie packs in a lot of content. Patricia DiTillio and Rina Barone's project is an exploration of the title word, its origins, implications and repercussions on women to whom it has been applied. What could have been a dry, academic linguistics/gender studies lecture actually comes alive as the filmmakers underscore the contemporary relevance of their inquiry. No one they talk with seems to have a clear definition of the term, confusing it with a number of desparaging terms for sexually active women which do not really distinguish crucial things like intention or awareness. In addition to delineating the obvious double standard (men who like to hump a lot of different people are studs, women who like to hump a lot of different people are sluts - at least among heterosexuals), the film's most effective tactic is explaining how easily and often scurrilously someone can be branded a slut, as well as what that can do to her self-image and social interactions during her formative teen years. Unlike, say, the n-word, "queer" or even "freak," it is unlikely that "slut" might be defanged through ironic usage or embraced as a identifying badge of honor. When the filmmakers visit former California Rep. Doug Ose, who was trying to get a list of dirty words banned from the airwaves, he completely shrugs off their insistence that "slut" is more harmful than "piss." Personally, I'd never considered how ugly and judgmental the word is, nor how pervasive it is in everyday conversation with both men and women. I've met plenty of women regarded as sluts, but even the few truly amoral ones who deserve its negative connotations did not get there on their own. After taking in their treatise, I fully agree with DiTillio and Barone - I tend to cringe when I hear the word now, and do not intend to use it anymore. Even when fully meant as a pejorative, "roundheel" just sounds nicer.

"Jim Brown: All American" - Keeping up with Spike Lee's directorial career has become quite difficult. His last theatrical feature, "She Hate Me", turned disparate ideas about modern black male identity and corporate responsibility into a shrill, muddled mess, even for someone like myself who's found something redeeming in virtually everything else the guy has done. Plus, he keeps making all these documentaries, which aren't always easy to track down. I saw this HBO special about "She Hate Me" co-star Jim Brown the morning of the Super Bowl, perhaps in an attempt to make myself more football-sympathetic. It didn't work, but Spike's flick is a nice tribute to an interesting athlete, movie star, businessman, activist - and possible woman beater. It's not all that special to look at, mostly having the dusty, reverent feel of those old ABC "Wide World of Sports" profiles (preferable to the cheesy music video diaries accompanying some of NBC's current Olympics broadcasts). But I was unaware why his action movies in particular were a big deal in the '70s, and the film also helps to underscore how much Brown's done to nurture the black community. This is a worthy catalogue of Brown's considerable accomplishments, one not so adulatory as to completely ignore some of the negative aspects of the man's mercenary bulldog M.O. It does somewhat gloss these over by ignoring their implications, but I'd like to think Spike intentionally left it up to the viewer to connect those dots.

"Gates of Heaven" - Errol Morris' early docs aren't as flashy as newer ones like "Mr. Death" or "The Fog of War". Of my recent Morris double feature, this, his debut, was more interesting than the subsequent, somewhat fluffy "Vernon, Florida". "Gates" tells both the tale of a man who tried to build a pet cemetery but ultimately failed, as well as of the family operating the site where the animals were eventually relocated. The first guy seems wholly altruistic, genuinely motivated by his own relationships with non-humans and appreciating that in others. Like Terry Gilliam and his unrealized "Quixote" movie, his endeavor was another victim of ambition, nature and capitalism, his admirable pie-in-the-sky attitude contrasted with a sleazy suit running a nearby rendering plant. The family behind the successful cemetery comes off as far more pragmatic, though not unsympathetic. They founded their own church, a Christian faith that believes God lets animals into Heaven as well as deserving humans, and I wish Morris explored this idea a little more. The dad seems condescendingly sympathetic when discussing arrangements with a couple who has lost their dog, but the couple doesn't seem to notice. Perhaps that obsequiousness is part and parcel of helping strangers grieve? Particularly affecting are his sons, who seem like they walked straight off the "Six Feet Under" set. Both saw their dreams dashed and, at the time of the film, were surviving by joining the family's burial business. The lonely single one, who mostly sits around huffing reefer and wailing on his guitar, opines that everyone should have their heart broken once (for a more complete understanding of life's disappointments and their hidden effect on the people around us?), an unprovoked, forlorn but ultimately true sentiment in a movie filled with them. I don't agree with Morris' detractors that claim "Gates" makes fun of its peculiar subjects, nor with Ebert that it is among the 10 best movies ever made, but it's certainly an intriguing slice of obscured reality.

"Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut 2" - This came with Shriek Show's long-awaited, beautiful "Anthropophagus" DVD, and is an extension of a doc by Roger Fratter that came with their release of D'Amato's nunsploitation picture "Images In A Convent". The general complaint with the first "Totally Uncut" seems to be that it ignored the contributions of D'Amato - prolific director Aristide Massachesi's best-known psuedonym - to the horror genre, which is supposedly the major focus here. Personally, I'd rather hear about Laura Gemser's sapphic, tragic career, but I like the scholarly female narrator's assessment of "Anthropophagus" and "Buio Omega" as, if not true classics, then effectively unpleasant highlights of Italian horror's most notoriously gruesome period. I imagine if viewed together and uncut (these American versions are apparently trimmed), Fratter's two films paint a decent portrait of a productive guy whose epic filmography includes everything from family adventures and post-apocalyptic action flicks to genuinely disturbing gore and tons of hardcore porn (which the aesthete famously continued to shoot on actual film well into the '90s). Long disparaged by cinephiles as a complete hack, a paragon of crassness among the many opportunists who fueled the once-thriving Italian exploitation industry, his huge body of work has been reevaluted after his early death in 1999. Nobody really has an unkind word about D'Amato here, who in some of his final interviews seems like a fun, lusty, self-aware movie lover that just happened to make lots of disreputable movies. (I'd stop before calling him an artist - after all, the guy is somewhat responsible for the existence of both "Troll 2" and "Anal Palace"). His contributions to envelope-pushing cinema are without question, as D'Amato brought together sex and violence to the extent of making XXX movies featuring cheap, flesh-eating, woman-overpowering zombies. Ya gotta admire the temerity, if not the results - if you need a handy sleep aid, let me loan you the lousy unsubtitled boot of "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" which I possess through no effort of my own. Joe's quips and stories are amusing, especially when he calls Eurofilm legend Klaus Kinski a "whore" and recounts how a prop screw-up during "Anthropophagus" led to his possession of a bunch of ancient Christian bones from the catacombs in which he filmed the infamous fetus-ripping-and-eating scene. More on that lovely image and other reasons I love Shriek Show's DVDs to come...

In a mellow mood? Try Leafblade, medieval balladry by Anathema's Danny Cavanagh and pals, another fine addition to the Strangelight records family. And, whoo, am I out of the loop... if you enjoy unorthodox recordings, maybe you were aware of The 365 Days Project. It's three years old, and full of pure insanity.

Moderate novelty

As you can see, I've added some new links, removed some blogs that never updated and arranged everyone under the general "comrades" tag, alphabetically according to what I think is each person's screen name. If you would like your link to be added, removed or altered, let me know.

In a similar spirit, I have joined MySpace. My shitty profile can be accessed at the right, under "leave." I know, I know. I said I was too old for such a thing, that you probably get a free Scion when you sign up. It's not like I need another avenue for people to find me. I often profess that I'm not a joiner. The site's very concept is astoundingly narcissistic. Yet I also once said such things about blogging, and you can see how strongly that conceit prevailed. One of the best Woods of Ypres songs is streaming there right now. Um, please be my friend.

Went bowling in Westmont last night, and, boy, are my lungs tired. Now playing: Trollfest, the adorable lo-fi Finntroll knockoff. Makes me feel like drinking in the afternoon. More actual content soon.

What metal band are you? Opeth You are Opeth! You are very poetic with your lyrics, and your music flows like a waterfall. Your emotions change from angry to sad very quickly. Some people don't like you because you can sound too depressing. You're one of the best metal bands in the world, and you worship your fans!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Sinus revolt

I'm getting over a cold and don't feel like writing a real post. Therefore, I submit an oldie but goodie, and since it's a form job, I will supplement that with an advance review of "Final Destination 3." Not enough? Go and play this dandy Viking raid game.

A - Accent: Chicago (so I'm told), where I guess we say things like "I'm gonna go get a coupla sossidges"

B - Breakfast Item: Coffee n' milk

C - Chore you hate: Cleaning behind the toilet

D - Dad's Name: Robert

E - Essential everyday item: Drixoral 12-Hour Cold & Allergy

F - Flavor of ice cream: Moose Tracks

G - Gold or Silver: I don't wear either; I guess gold, so I can hawk it

H - Hometown: Palatine or Addison, depending on what "hometown" means

I - Insomnia: Recently subsided, replaced with occasional disturbing dreams

J - Job Title: Editorial Assistant

K - Kids: Got none, want none

L - Living arrangements: One-bedroom condo with fireplace and lots of closet space

M - Mom's birthplace: Chicago

N - Number of pets you have: Currently, zero

O - Overnight hospital stays: Just one, when I was about three or four years old, to get the tendons in my left foot readjusted

P - Phobias: Hairy spiders bigger than your fist, getting syrup on my sleeve while eating French toast

Q - Queer?: Am I? No, but Joe is

R - Religious Affiliation: Recovering Catholic - it's never out of your system entirely

S - Siblings: None that I'm aware of (I'm adopted, y'know)

T - Time you wake up: Between 7 and 8 on weekdays, 10 and noon on weekends

U - Unnatural hair colors you've worn: Magenta, purple, spring green, blue/forest green and a hideous peroxide-derived "turkey gravy" hue

V - Vegetables you refuse to eat: Lima beans

W - Worst habit: Employing honesty at the expense of diplomacy

X - X-rays you've had: They do my teeth at the dentist's, but I cannot recall the many others

Y - Yummy: Thora Birch and her fake accent in "The Hole", back before she got all bony and blonde... Keira Knightley's scrawny underage boobs really can't compete

Z - Zodiac sign: Leo

Heathen dwarfs started small

Travelogue time. The Heathen Crusade took place in a cool little club tucked at the end of a strip mall somewhere between St. Paul and Minneapolis. The front of the place is a tolerable sports bar/restaurant, and there's also a big room with pool tables from which you enter and exit the concert venue. These being humane people, the organizers let you come and go as you pleased, whether to cop a squat in the eatery, duck out to your vehicle to deposit purchases, have a conversation without shouting or otherwise change environments. None of this dictatorial "once you're in, you're in" bullshit. I arrived too late to see the first act, locals Enshrined, but I caught at least some of the other nine.

Autumn Eternal - Not very memorable, but not lousy, either. The Cleveland group obviously listens to a lot of Scandinavian black/death, and I remember hearing some riffs obviously lifted from the Dissection catalogue, although not from any particular song. Not a bad thing, but rather than pump me up with God-hating rage, all it did was remind me that I had just heard the new Dissection material the day before, and how mediocre it sounded after all these years of waiting and making due with knockoffs. (I mean, Naglfar's "I Am Vengeance" is the best Dissection song I've heard in a decade.) In general, Autumn Eternal reminded me of the kind of band you'll see if you go early to a metal show at The Rave in Milwaukee: young, enthusiastic, competent, but too reliant on their influences to make much of an impression. I think one of their songs was about werewolves, which although corny is preferable to another damned metal song about vampires. Those pale motherfuckers are so played out.

Dumah - Now, Dumah (from northern Wisconsin) was the kind of band you used to see cramming the side stages during Milwaukee Metalfest's prime: well-practiced veterans with a more individual sound, yet still not ready for the big leagues. This was mainly a sort of melodic death/black/doom, and aside from some Manowar-y swords n' shields lyrics, their link to the fest's theme is that their melodies sounded more inspired by the grueling Viking tales of Amon Amarth than the typical bouncy Gothenburg gait American bands tend to emulate. The music sounded thick, appropriately war-torn and occasionally quite good. Their singer was a skinny, gothy-looking dude with funny contacts who reminded me of a cross between Dani Filth and Zion from Disinter, not really imposing enough to complement Dumah's meaty presence. This forever-to-be-underground band really has no shot at achieving legendary status as they are, but if I saw them again, I would not be upset.

Typhus - I stepped away for some fresh air after Dumah, expecting Todesbonden to play next, but when I returned, the Minneapolis black metal outfit Typhus stood banging away on stage. I was not familiar with their music, although their song titles and image precede them. I expected some blasting blasphemy of the drooling mongoloid variety, the kind of artless din that makes Marduk look like erudite aesthetes offering a thoughtful critique of Christian doctrine. It sucked that they were playing, as I had intended to go eat dinner when they came on, but now had to stick around so I wouldn't miss Todesbonden. So as I crankily tucked into a fresh Newcastle, I grew surprised that their music was so bracing, oozing melancholy melody in both fast and slow tempos, very grim and "true" '90s black metal. No pummeling death metal drums, a needlessly bludgeoning tool typically employed by Stateside BM hordes. But speaking of BM... the lyrics... oh, gawd. Pure comedy. In quality, it was night and day from what they were playing. I could not help but giggle when faced with the incongruity in taking a dismal, slow-burning melody in the corroded vein of Shining (if I ever allowed myself to listen to the Nazi bastard, I suppose I could say it's handed down from Burzum), calling it "Anal Rape of the Virgin Mary" and rasping over it quite decipherable sub-Deicide lyrics about forceably violating the Holy Mother's holiest of holy orifices. Then they one-upped that charming image by doing a number about having wild sex in a big pile of poo... for SATAAAAN! (Of course.) I think I was pissing this dude off who was standing next to me, because he was rocking out and I could not stop laughing, thinking of these ugly doofuses - one of whom I saw sheepishly applying his fearsome corpse paint in the restroom - engaging in enthusiastic coprophagic orgies. Then I kept imagining the band working the crowd afterwards, trying to get laid: "Hey, hot stuff! Did you see my set? Yeah? What did you think of our song 'Ritual Semen Sacrement [sic]'? Awesome, huh? So, can I buy you a drink?" Very entertaining, but not entirely how Typhus intended it to be. This is the sort of band that continues to give metal its cerebral reputation.

Todesbonden - The most serious sound troubles of the day cropped up for this, the mellowest act on the bill. Todesbonden (das ist deutsch für "bonds of death") are kind of a metallic Renaissance Faire job, complete with keyboards, chimes and a metrosexual fiddler. They aim somewhere between Dead Can Dance and early 3rd and the Mortal, ethnic/ritual mixed with heavy/ethereal. They're fronted by Laurie Ann Haus, a Lisa Gerrard/Stevie Nicks sort of mystical lady singer who used to sing for the gothic neoclassical group Autumn Tears and actually sang back-up in Rain Fell Within the last couple of times I saw that late, lamented goth/doom group. I figured they would at least be interesting, and they were, although I have to say I liked the opening and closing songs the best. These were instrumentals with wordless vocals, building to the kind of powerful, trance-inducing crescendos of rapturous sonic beauty that you want from this sort of thing. The middle of the set had more typical songs which reminded me of Arise From Thorns, although a little slower and heavier. The guitarist had a lot of problems, and the bassist was way too loud, so when he was doing these slow, atmospheric bass lines, it was all "TWUMMM! THRUMM! BRRMMM!" If they tone down the rock aspects in the future, it won't hurt them much, as their less abrasive tendencies seemed more strongly developed.

Novembers Doom - Jesus God. This Chicago doom/death band plays virtually every time I go to a show now. They are good, but I needed to eat, so I just watched them play two songs from the new record and then went out. I bought an energy drink from the dollar store in the strip mall, then stashed it in the car with my Moonsorrow t-shirt and those CDs I wrote about a few days ago. Back inside, I ordered some food and waited. Anyway, why does Novembers Doom's new bassist keep wearing those damn sunglasses on stage? He looks like goddamned Bobby Dall or something. And speaking of stupid-looking glammy schmucks, this seems like a good place to mention the fest's MC. With a hairdo and personality that made me guess he was a fixture on the local "active rock" radio station's morning show and a level of smarm that would turn a lounge singer's stomach, this clown kept the crowd surly with such sunny observations as "Whoo! Typhus was so totally evil!" and "Holy shit! Todesbonden totally kicked my ass!" Juliya from Uranium could have added more intellectual weight to the host role. The guy seemed hard-pressed to come up with cliché "metal" things to yell and was obviously unfamiliar with all the performers, so he kept playing the "Where are you from?" game between bands. I kept thinking of this himbo as the heavy metal Wink Martindale until some dude in the back observed, loudly and accurately,"This guy is like Quagmire with long, blonde hair!" The mental image was dead-on.

The Chasm - I heard my favorite Chicago band cracking skulls in the next room. Yet there I was, stitting at a bar, talking about metal with a friendly scenester dude from Wisconsin (who turned out to be behind the Quagmire line), tossing back many Newcastles, waiting and waiting and waiting for the reuben I ordered in the middle of Novembers Doom's set. When it arrived, it was a delicious reuben, but it caused me to miss a majority of The Chasm. Ever a devisive band, some people see the Mexican natives as goofy old leather-and-spikes-wearing throwbacks nearing Typhus' level of embarrassment. Those people haven't listened closely, or they just can't get their heads around creativity and a range of emotion which deviates from the clinical, predictable style that death metal has become today. For all their sychronized guitar swinging and cornball "True Metal of Death" rhetoric, their onslaught of rampaging thrash and bent melodies really does take on an otherworldly aura. They blend textures and styles like mid-period Enslaved, although the Norwegians didn't have a serious hard-on for obscure early extreme metal. But The Chasm's encyclopedic knowledge of that stuff roots their material in an earthier, more embryonic time, which fits nicely alongside their ancient Aztec conceits. This band has been through some shit, and that they can still make multifaceted riff feasts like "The Spell of Retribution" speaks to their tenacity and talent. I could go on all day about these guys. Wish I could say more about their performance at the Crusade, but I'm sure they wrecked plenty of necks.

Thyrfing - I always thought of these guys as a complete cult band, in that I never see anyone wearing their shirts and I've never met anyone else who seemed very enthused about them. Maybe this is just the American view, since the Swedes often play the summer festivals in Europe and thus probably have a decent following there, whereas this was their first time playing in the States. Anyway, I'm sure I'm in the minority that would downgrade the collective achievements of Enslaved, Mithotyn, Einherjer, Månegarm and even Bathory, but I think Thyrfing's "Vansinnesvisor" is the best Viking metal album ever made (not having heard their new "Farsotstider" yet). While the band's older material was very good folksy black-ish metal, some of the abundant keyboard lines tended to give off a jaunty, fairyland sort of vibe, like friendlier Windir. That all changed when they beefed up in 2002. Imagine the rhythm of a chain gang, grimy hammers clanging in downtrodden unison, and you'll approximate their loping barbarian momentum, which only intensified live. Smeared with mud and stage blood, Thyrfing nailed a thick, powerful groove and highlighted the diversity of their material. This was also the first time the band had Toni Kocmut, the guy who did the clean singing on "Vansinnesvisor," performing with them, so we American fans got an even better show for our patience. In the end, what really impressed me was how closely they could replicate those axe-swinging grooves and sumptuous textures, how full Peter Löf's keys and samples sounded, how well the old material was tweaked to fit Thyrfing's current war-torn style and how many other Americans know these songs, too.

Primordial - Why is it that at most shows I attend, the band I want to see the most always plays second to last? Although I was very charged for all three headliners, these Irishmen made it into my personal top five last year with "The Gathering Wilderness", on one hand a typical Primordial album but on the other a stunning distillation of what sets this band apart. Perhaps the most perfectly named metal band since Amorphis, these guys cultivate a dense, murky, deep-rooted, swirling environment of primal emotion. They certainly sound Celtic, due to their snapping rhythms (drummer Simon O'Laoghaire has evolved into a dynamic genius on a level with Martin Lopez or Daniel Liljekvist) and the the sorts of solemn melodies they subtly employ. But Primordial have evolved past the pipes and mandolins, and back when they sparingly used them they never approached the folky extremes of most culturally-centered metal acts. Instead, they evoke and extol their native culture by playing a highly individualistic type of hybrid metal, and in this they share a trait with The Chasm. I've seen singer Alan Nemtheanga perform on a DVD, but up close the guy is way more intense, theatrically scowling and mugging like a despondent European Jello Biafra. The highlight was probably "The Coffin Ships", pretty much the one "Wilderness" song every review I've seen can agree is completely amazing. The ten-minute epitaph for the lost refugees of the Great Hunger swelled to a crest of somber doom majesty, Nemtheanga wracking his frame into a portrait of near-unbearable grief, pretty much challenging any American of Irish descent in the room to do the same when reflecting upon how they got here. "Gods To the Godless," "Autumn's Ablaze," "To Enter Pagan"... I rocked the hell out, although you can't tell from this picture I found posted on a forum, in which you can clearly see the back of my head during Primordial's set:

Why didn't you tell me I'm getting so thin back there? It may be getting time for the skullet.

Moonsorrow - So sated was I by Primordial's overwhelmingly excellent American debut that I almost felt like leaving when they finished... until I remembered that Moonsorrow was next. Before the fest, I remember wondering why the young Finns were ending the day rather than the previous two veteran bands. Now it's obvious: there's no more appropriate culmination of a long, arduous northern journey through a baleful blizzard and considerable hardship than to finally rest your bones in front of a crackling fire on the mountaintop, a place to reflect upon the cruel beauty and pristine efficiency of the natural world. And that surely describes the Moonsorrow experience. As teenagers, cousins Ville and Henri Sorvali cranked out a few impressive demos, working from the typical black-metal-with-folk-influences template. In short order, they evolved the concept into a canon of rich, cinematic epics evoking the dolor and delight of pre-Christian Lapland, with stein-hoisting Viking choirs, accordions, mouth harps, nature samples and a rich tapestry of charming folk melodies for flavor. (Henri also plays keyboards for ultra-fun doppelgängers Finntroll, who add speed punk and weird humor to that same template for a more drunken, mischievous take on folk metal.) Live, Moonsorrow did without the accoutrements and kicked out a fair amount of rock n' roll grit for a too-short set that proved both boisterous and contemplative. "Sankarihauta" and "Pimeä" were absolutely massive, it was way more fun doing the jolly gang shouts and handclaps in "Kylän Päässä" with other fans than in the car by myself, and the roiling riff that runs throughout their closer, "Ukkosenjumalan Poika," was stuck in my head for the whole drive home.

And that's that. The fest was surprisingly well attended and the audience response rapturous, so here's my wish list for the inevitable Heathen Crusade II: Skyclad, Himinbjorg, Aes Dana, Forefather, Suidakra, Korpiklaani, Ensiferum (so I can ask Meiju to marry me) and... what the hell, how about a live debut by Falkenbach?

If you read all of that, thanks. I promise the next post won't be about Eurometal. Um, go Seahawks, I guess.