David Bowie just went with retirement 2 weeks ago, when he became 65. So it is about time to get on with my top 10 of reasons to like Bowie eventhough he already retired 10 years ago! And this time it is an obvious one, since I assume there are a lot of people who do not care about Bowie’s music, but do like his Style. Bowie is glamourous, flamboyant and andrygonous fashion. Here some of my favorite pics!
Posted in Japan on October 9, 2011 by Jagged Visions
Already a while ago I received from Japan the package with Tone Deaf Ep and the Terro-Rhythm compilation. I met the guys from Tone Deaf in 2009 in Osaka, when I did an inteview with Ryo their singer for Jagged Visions zine #3. Tone Deaf is already around for quite some years. They have released a demo in 2004 and appear on quite some compilations, but this is their first proper own release.
The EP came with 4 sleeves in different colours: yellow, blue, green and black. On the cover is a drawing with pinguins on it. On the black vinyl 7″ are 5 songs. Tone Deaf plays furious old skool hardcore punk in the vein of DC bands like Faith, Dag Nasty and Minor Threat. Especially their ability to slow down in parts of the songs with groovy intermezzos before exploding again reminds me of DC hardcore, although also bands like SSD and Uniform Choice come to mind. Many bands before have been inspired by these bands, but Tone Deaf really does it in their own way. It sounds really fresh and energetic. The songs are tight and the singer is Ryo furious screaming his lungs out. My favorite song is “What a hateful World”. I also have to think of Japanese bands like Gauze, Mink Oil and especially SiC while listening to Tone Deaf.
This is a really good EP, All 5 songs have a lot of energy and if you are into Japanese hardcore, you should be eager to get this. The EP is released by the bands itself and I didn’t see it appear in any distro’s outside Japan. Probably the best thing to do is to contact the band itself, because unfortunately this is not a download blog, but hey what is better than finding a package from Japan on your doormat, to unpack it and to put the EP on the recordplayer!
In my package also came the Terro-Rhytm compilation cd #6 with Tone Deaf on it as well. The concept of Terro-Rhythm compilation is to have 4 different Japanese bands on it doing around 8 songs each. Next to Tone Deaf on this compilation are this time Avfall, Lullabye and Conga Fury. Lullabye sounds fresh, energetic rocking hardcore/screamo from Fukuoka, maybe not so original but good. Avfall plays heavy crust punk, the recordings sounds a bit low and poor, but maybe they did it on purpose to sound crusty.. Conga Fury plays fast noize hardcore, but can’t really convince me, they sound a bit too polished. Especially compared to other noize core like Zyanose, Death Dust Extractor or Iterismo. Some of the Tone Deaf songs have with titles like “Wig Out At Denka” or “Kids will not have their say” references to classic punk songs by Dag Nasty and SSD. Songs are good, although i prefer the ones on the EP. Fast raging old skool hardcore.
Here is my second post on why you should or at least could like David Bowie even tough you hate his music. And this is an easy on for all your headbanging metal kids! David Bowie at the age of 17 was the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired men. Respect! Check below what must be the earliest TV interview with David Bowie, here still known under his real name as David Jones.
Another member of this idealistic group of long haired men was Jimmy fucking Page! David Bowie around the same time played in a band named the Manish Boys which released one single “I pity the fool” in 1965. This ep features Page, at the time a session guitarist, doing the solo. The song also appeared on Bowie his debut LP. Later on in 1976 according to an interview Bowie once exorcised his house after Page visited him. He thought that Page brought poltergeist to his house. Later on more about Bowie and the occult…
Check here another early video of Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds:
The new album by Japanese heavyweights BORIS is out now or actually I should say new albums, because they released two albums at the same time. “Heavy Rocks” and “Attention Please”. Both albums share one song “Aileron”, but the albums are really different. “Attention Please” is the more heavy noisy drone album with a lot of female vocals. A nice album, but the other release “’Heavy Rocks” totally blows me away!!
Heavy Rocks by Boris
It is a long time I have been so impressed by new LP. The album mixes heavy rock with stoner and metal and psychedelic and drones and ambient and whatever else. It is a real rollercoaster of amazing riffs and in my opinion the best that Boris released so far! I hear influences of My bloody Valentine, Black Sabbath, Les Rallides des Nudes, Sunn O))), Brian Eno! It is also more poppy to what they released before. I don’t mind. Boris rocks. Check out live stream at 3voor12radio.
There are guest vocals by Aaron Turner and Ian Astbury of The Cult. Fucking awesome! Best album of the year!
So why wouldn’t you like David Bowie his music!?! I have no fucking clue! Still some people do and I will give them 10 reasons why they should at least like him for some other amazing things that he did next to music! I hope to post all these damn good reasons on this blog in the coming months. Some of them will be quite straight forward, others not. Today I will start with the reason #1!
Bowie and Burroughs
David Bowie wrote some of his lyrics using the cut up technique, which was invented by Dadaism and made popular by William S. Burroughs. The American novelist of the Beat generation would cut up normal texts, take out words, then rearrange the remaining words in random order. Burroughs thought the texts he wrote using these methods had subliminal meaning. Another way was to cut up two pieces of texts along the middle in half and then line two halves along the edge to get a new text. You can see Burroughs using this technique in the below video:
Bowie met Burroughs in 1974 in London, a journalist of Rolling Stone magazine set up an interview between the two. In the fascinating interview, they openly talk with each other about a lot of cool topics like psychic phenomena, Ziggy Stardust and Andy Warhol who is according to Burroughs “a real science fiction character”. Burroughs also talks about dreams and how they influence him. He says that 70% of his ideas come from his dreams. David Bowie even keeps a tape recorder next to his bed to record his ideas. That both of them get a lot of creativity from the unconscious also is known through their interest in psychedelic drugs. Bowie once said that the time after Ziggy Stardust came out was one long trip of heavy drugs use. William Burroughs was also an advocate of drugs like LSD and regularly addicted to heroin. It is also really worthwhile to check out the hallucinatory hippie movie Chappaqua with an appearance of Burroughs and also of Allen Ginsberg.
Bowie and Burroughs
David Bowie also used the cut-up technique to make songs. The track “Warszawa” written with Brian Eno from “Low” album is made by using the cut-up technique. They cut up a instrumental songs in pieces based on finger-clicks and then rearranged it with chord changes based on certain numbers. The melancholic and haunting song is one of the highlights of the first album of the Berlin Trilogy, a series of amazing Bowie records in collaboration with Brian Eno. Ian Curtis who was a big Bowie fan first named his band Warsaw after this song, to change it later to Joy Division.
Got two kickass zines from the Philippines in the post this week. Check my reviews below! Zines rule, blogs suck!
Incidental Afterthought #13/ I Remember Halloween 5
Split zines between this two half size zines from the Phillippines. I Remember Halloween by Dane Cortes start has some cool interviews with From Ashes Rise, Crippled Black Phoenix and Low Vision from Japan. Especially the Crippled Black Phoenix interview is interesting with them talking about all kind of stuff like films, their jobs and their artwork. The Low Vision interview is short and the answers are in broken English, but still gives a good vibe where these dudes are into. One of the best Japanese trash bands out there, especially live check this energetic video!
split zine
The second half of the split zine, Incidental Afterthought #13 is by a dude named Joseph Wordslinger with help of some friends. The zine has two long interviews with Eye Hate God and Moloch from the UK. A long interesting piece about why there are no serial killers in the Philippines. I remember when I was in Indonesia they just caught a cannibal serial killer named Sumanto who thought he became immortal when he ate his victims. Dukun! Black Magic. Do they really not have this stuff in Phillippines? I can’t believe it, but lucky for them. Nice dark, original zine with lots of personality, I have to get the remaining 12 issues somehow…
I Remember Halloween #6
Issue number 6 of IRH only covers local Philippine bands, scene report and only reviews of local zines and bands. There seem to be a lot of zines out there, which I would like to see over here as well… Bands interviewed are Rush Id, Isvarah and Isukas over Disneyland. I never heard of them, still i liked to read what they had to say. Always good to read that the same scene bullshit politics are everywhere the same. Good concept, still next time I would like to read some interviews with foreign bands again!
My Diard crew homie Jos released a new EP with his Death Metal band Massive Assault. The EP “Slayer” came out to have a record out with their new line up. Old singer Carl and drummer Gideon came back in the band and Jos switched from vocals to bass guitar. A bit of a pitty, because I liked his attitude as a frontman. I mean which singer of a metal band goes on stage in tight swimming pants or a pink t-shirt? On the other hand a good solution, because he still does backing vocals and the band sounds tighter than ever. Also check out Jos his other wannabee tuff guy metalcore band Dirty East Godverdomme!
Front cover of Slayer EP
The great front cover by Gijs shows a soldier from Platoon. I guess war is a bit the theme of the record. The first song with lyrics by ex-Painbrouwer singer and Afghanistan veteran Jurkie aka kuthippie is about Vietnam and I love what he wrote:
“The battlefield lays behind
wonder what I wil find
when the napalm fire is gone
will the ware be gone
Now I’m at the end
I don’t know what it meant
life used to terrify
and now I’m scared to die
scared to die
Marching the streets (3x)
The streets of dead (3x)
Oh no, the aftermath
the war lingers in my head
Bombs of confusion
dropped on our path
Do not retreat
move straight ahead
Bullets of emotions
are piercing my heart
our war begins
right at the start”
Combined with sick Slayer style riff and brutal vocals it is a killer of a song. The next song with Jos his hardcore style lyrics, the general theme is fuck society, I don’t care what you do and I walk my own path. It is a brutal song with some good mosh riffs. Massive Assault blast all these fake metalcore bands away like Slayer!
Next song Ghostriders is probably favorite, a real fucking anthem with a sick Slayer break in the middle. Sorry that I compare everything with Slayer, but they are the only metal band I sometimes listen to. The fourth song “Genoicide” is a nice dark song with Slayer style lyrics and deep growls! Last song is a live song, but it still sounds tighter and better produced than most bands!
I don’t know that much about metal and don’t listen to it too much, but I definitely know this is just good. No bullshit and pretention just call your record “Slayer” and trash!
Finally I got around to post some reviews of zines that I read! Zines are fun and when facebook is dead still be there!
Some Will Never Know #2
The second issue of Some Will Never Know is already out for a while and if you don’t have a copy yet it is about time to pick one up. This zine is really worth the money, like the first issue good long personal interviews with interesting people. The ones that stood out for me were the interviews with Che the ex-singer of Born From Pain, that dude from Wales, Jos of Seein Red and with Pieter Hendriks who drummed in a lot of Dutch bands like Reaching Forward, Nrsimhadeva and also Born From Pain. Favorite story was probably the one with Serge de Maar who is the man behind the famous Innocent who tells about his travels and former political activities. It is really interesting which surprising stories a lot of people have to tell and all credits to Pim who gets that out of them. Like Jos of Seeing Red making house music like Fatboy Slim or Serge of Innocent about being in jail in Germany for terrorist activities.
There is also a nice article where a lot of different people tell their story about the Goudvishal in Arnhem. The now closed down concert hall was the main place for hardcore punk in the nineties in Holland which can be read in a lot of different memories from the volunteers, the bands and visitors. In the coming weeks I will try to write down my own memories and post them here!
Pim keeps continue writing and publishing on his blog and hopefully #3 will also once see the light.
Chaotiks Revenge #6/ Ploppy Pants # 10
Split zine from 2010 between Chaotiks Revenge from Holland by Marit and Ploppy Pants from Scotland by Roddy. Small crusty zines with short interviews, rants, reviews and personal stories about traveling. Chaotik has an interview with Regulations and a cool interview with people of Swomp who squatted a piece of fallow in the centre of Amsterdam to make a biological vegetable garden. Ploppy Pants is not shitty at all. I loved the great long in-depth interview with a guy called Jeeves, who really is the coolest Scottish punk ever. he tells about the early punk scene. The lucky dude saw the likes of Joy Division, Saxon, The Clash, Motorhead, Buzzcocks and on and one. In the early nineties he organized rave festivals in the mountains of Scotland, toured with his own band and roadied for Oi Polloi and Bloodshot. He has a lot of great anecdotes. Pick the zine up if you can, only 1 euro!
Keep it Real #10
Apostolis from Greece of Keep It Real out and unfortunately it is the last issue… This issue has like expected lots of interviews and a nice lay out. Interviews with bands like Fucked Up, Integrity, Throats, Bitter End and Lemuria. Dwid of Integrity didnt seem so inspired by the questions and only gave short cryptic answers, which in a way is also cool. The Fucked Up guys put a bit more effort in it but still seem to be answer a bit on the automatic pilot, but in a way also cool if asked about which bands in the current scene he likes the most, he honestly says he mostly listens to house music. Bitter End, Lemuria and Glasses interviews are nice. Personally I liked the interviews with the Greek bands Ruined Family and Antimob the most, just like the interview with the artist who made the awesome cover. Instead of collums on vegetarism or violent dancing I also would have loved to read some more about the pretty fucked up political situation in Greece, but maybe Greek kids are totally sick of it? Nice zine and I’m curious about what the new project is going to be!
Antidrasi listed by the guys of Antimob as one of their favorite Greek bands. I like it!
