Rare .rars
Happy Friday the 13th... what's left of it. I recently did a piece on the five scariest musical performers I could think of, and I think it's okay if I scoop myself by posting it here today. It's sort of a holiday, after all.
You know what rule? MP3 blogs! Here are three of my favorites.
-Rare and OOP Soundtracks: Like it says, this is (mostly) stuff you just can't walk into a store and buy. If you look at the URL, you can surmise that it was originally dedicated to Italian horror movie scores, which are among some of the best ever. But fans of composers like Richard Band, James Horner or Vangelis will find as much to check out as Goblin/Frizzi freaks. Speaking of Goblin, may I suggest the limited-release "Solamente Nero" score? They didn't write it, but they played the entire thing uncredited. Talk about obscure - and totally wicked. Then there's "Symphonic Holocaust," an out-of-print one-off collaboration between members of Swedish prog bands Anekdoten and Landberk going by the name Morte Macabre. This mellotron-soaked doozy has covers of score highlights from "L'Aldila," "Buio Omega" and more, although MM's version of the "Rosemary's Baby" lullaby can't touch Fantômas'.
-asabay: As in, "One Rode to Asa Bay," the final track on Bathory's 1990 opus Hammerheart, which is usually credited with being the first *real* Viking metal album. This blog is all about folk, ethnic, pagan and black metal, and is pretty good about mixing up genres, eras and points of origin. As to be expected, there's some neo-Nazi shit among the gems. (They don't always warn you what's what, so be careful and investigate if that sort of thing bothers you as much as it does me.) Otherwise, there's a fine selection of neat rare/expensive treats, such as the bonus acoustic live disc that came with the special edition of Orphaned Land's glorious Mabool, Leviathan's two-disc demo compilation Verräter or all of the hard-to-find Meads of Asphodel albums. UPDATE: asabay has apparently ceased posting as of today, so check it out while the links are still active.
-Way Out Junk: Oh, now this is what the internet is for... nostalgia. Way Out Junk is a blog for fans of children's records and wacky pop culture ephemera. You'll probably find something you used to spin to death as a child here. It may save some time for those of you busily turning their old "Sesame Street" LPs into mp3s - it's got, for instance, "My Name Is Roosevelt Franklin" and "The Fairy Tale Album." But you can also find crazy story records that came in boxes of Count Chocula, the only Elvis Presley album I've ever wanted and the original album from which They Might Be Giants yanked their immortal single "Why Does the Sun Shine?" Even if you have beef with the copyright issues raised by file sharing, you surely cannot object to this blog. It's not like you can can just go out and buy this stuff.
You know what rule? MP3 blogs! Here are three of my favorites.
-Rare and OOP Soundtracks: Like it says, this is (mostly) stuff you just can't walk into a store and buy. If you look at the URL, you can surmise that it was originally dedicated to Italian horror movie scores, which are among some of the best ever. But fans of composers like Richard Band, James Horner or Vangelis will find as much to check out as Goblin/Frizzi freaks. Speaking of Goblin, may I suggest the limited-release "Solamente Nero" score? They didn't write it, but they played the entire thing uncredited. Talk about obscure - and totally wicked. Then there's "Symphonic Holocaust," an out-of-print one-off collaboration between members of Swedish prog bands Anekdoten and Landberk going by the name Morte Macabre. This mellotron-soaked doozy has covers of score highlights from "L'Aldila," "Buio Omega" and more, although MM's version of the "Rosemary's Baby" lullaby can't touch Fantômas'.
-asabay: As in, "One Rode to Asa Bay," the final track on Bathory's 1990 opus Hammerheart, which is usually credited with being the first *real* Viking metal album. This blog is all about folk, ethnic, pagan and black metal, and is pretty good about mixing up genres, eras and points of origin. As to be expected, there's some neo-Nazi shit among the gems. (They don't always warn you what's what, so be careful and investigate if that sort of thing bothers you as much as it does me.) Otherwise, there's a fine selection of neat rare/expensive treats, such as the bonus acoustic live disc that came with the special edition of Orphaned Land's glorious Mabool, Leviathan's two-disc demo compilation Verräter or all of the hard-to-find Meads of Asphodel albums. UPDATE: asabay has apparently ceased posting as of today, so check it out while the links are still active.
-Way Out Junk: Oh, now this is what the internet is for... nostalgia. Way Out Junk is a blog for fans of children's records and wacky pop culture ephemera. You'll probably find something you used to spin to death as a child here. It may save some time for those of you busily turning their old "Sesame Street" LPs into mp3s - it's got, for instance, "My Name Is Roosevelt Franklin" and "The Fairy Tale Album." But you can also find crazy story records that came in boxes of Count Chocula, the only Elvis Presley album I've ever wanted and the original album from which They Might Be Giants yanked their immortal single "Why Does the Sun Shine?" Even if you have beef with the copyright issues raised by file sharing, you surely cannot object to this blog. It's not like you can can just go out and buy this stuff.
posted by SoulReaper at 10:03 PM
2 Comments:
THE FIVE SCARIEST MUSICAL PERFORMERS I COULD THINK OF:
G.G. Allin: Sex, drugs, rock n' roll... G.G. Allin did them all as violently as possible. Allin made alternately catchy and plodding songs that were plenty antisocial, but really nothing special. His stage shows, though, were legendary. He often came out naked, flung excrement at the crowd and hurt himself (or an audience member) until he was a bloody, wailing mess. Allin's confrontational sets often ended after a few songs, with safety-pinned punkers running from venues in fear for their own safety. By the time of his 1993 death by heroin overdose, the man’s body was a roadmap of crude tattoos and self-inflicted scars. This dude is still the standard by which all "gutter punks" are measured, as he truly did not give a you-know-what.
Burzum: While many in Norway's infamous black metal scene talked misanthropy, one-man band Burzum was hatred incarnate. Yes, Kristian "Varg" Vikernes' desolate, droning melodies and anguished screams still provide musical inspiration for new bands today. But Vikernes was also responsible for burning down several historic churches, as well as for killing Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, guitarist and ideologue of fellow black metallers Mayhem. On top of this, he’s been linked with neo-Nazi movements and issues pamphlets about "racial purity" from prison, where, because he tried to get away a few years ago, he’s stuck until 2008. And some people still buy Burzum albums.
N.W.A: Blurring the line between fantasy and reality, the godfathers of L.A. gangsta rap scared the hell out of every parent who caught their kid with a cassette of Straight Outta Compton. In N.W.A's consumption-fueled milieu, all women were sexual objects, all police were racist enemies and all who stood in their way were going to get shot. Never mind that rapper Ice Cube is currently filming a sequel to "Are We There Yet?" The morally bankrupt anger that fed his lyrics and Eazy-E's sleazy delivery made them both imposing and alluring to millions of young people. While black parents worried about the negative stereotypes being celebrated, white parents were even more scared, because N.W.A brought nightmares of inner city squalor straight to the cozy 'burbs.
Whitehouse: Most people who complain about loud rock music being "noise" would be mortified by the actual noise scene, where England's Whitehouse's horrible scrapings are extremely influential. Founder William Bennett's fixations on violence and domination manifest in electronic aural assaults meant to pulverize listeners, with no melody or dance beats to ease the pain – only an occasional glimpse of sick humor. Over this, Bennett's way-distorted voice meditates on torture, rape, pedophilia and other acts of sadistic aggression, his single-minded viciousness earning accusations ranging from misogyny to fascism. While many of Bennett's contemporaries moved on to more genteel forms of uncommercial expression (ambient, neo-folk, musique concrète), Whitehouse continues to generate the same frightening din today.
The Kelly Family: In the 1996 German flick "Killer Condom," the protagonist goes over a list of the world's new curiosities: "...cyberspace, high-risk groups, BSE, the Kelly Family." This jab probably went over most Americans' heads, but anyone who caught the nine singing siblings' infomercials during the '90s wasn't so lucky. The American-rooted Kellys began as European street musicians, becoming superstars with a succession of painfully sugary pop tunes. But this continental Partridge Family plied their pap with plastic good looks and cold, soulless eyes that betrayed their vacuous nature. Add to this the facts that they were all related, their manager parents had no problem with them singing romantic love songs as pre-teens and there were so darn many of them, and the Kelly Family comes off as creepier than The Shaggs, the Osmonds and the Simpson sisters combined.
Great... now that I already mp3d every Sesame Street record that wouldn't destroy my needle. Actually, my Roosevelt Franklin is one that would have.
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