KISS AND MAKE-UP by Gene Simmons [Three Rivers Press]
I'll freely grant that Gene Simmons earned every inch of his reputation as the world's most arrogant motherfucker, but you should listen to him anyway, because he's not only an interesting, intelligent guy, but most amusing as well. Regardless of the title, the main subject at hand here is really Gene -- he talks about himself at great length, although he does occasionally talk about things other than Gene. Not that it matters, because the background he reveals about himself is just as interesting (and sometimes even more so) as the peek into the inner workings of what was, for about three of four years at the end of the seventies, probably the biggest band in the world. He's extremely candid in his assessment of his bandmates and their failures (especially where Ace and Peter are concerned), but he readily admits that he's no picnic to work with either, and his depiction of KISS as a band plagued by internal problems from day one is a revelation of sorts. He's also completely unapologetic about his desire to make money and lots of it, ideally lots more than you, and his desire to basically pork every women of legal age who's currently breathing. "More is always better than less" is Gene's basic philosophy of life, and this book illustrates how that endless ambition ultimately resulted in KISS. He also talks at length about his relationship with Playmate Shannon Tweed and their two children, which is actually one of the most intriguing parts of the book. If you've ever been down with KISS, this is something you should check out. Prepare to see the sacred cows slaughtered, though....
LETHOLOGICA # 1
This is the first issue of a most quixotic zine, sort of like a angst-driven counterculture answer to ANTAEUS, maybe, only a much lower budget. Strange art and cryptic cartoons festoon the pages, breaking up a series of poetic musings, odd articles, and short fiction. The poems don't do much for me one way or the other -- i don't understand poetry at all and was hopelessly ruined on the subject forever after having to sit through endless readings of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" in college (it goes on and and on and on and i still don't know what it's about, other than brooding angst or something) -- but the cartoons are interesting and original, both in style and vision, and some of the articles are intriguing. "What Good is a Dead Fetus," an examination of just what happens to the fetus that gets scraped out of your average knocked-up teenager, is kind of interesting, and the bizarre prose poem "Five Mesostichs for John Cage" is worthy of attention. There's plenty of other stuff to read, much of it about sex, along with the peculiar "If Patti Smith Was Jesus" that's some kind of quasi-lesbian punk rant. They even include music reviews, unusual for a publication of this nature, covering a wide range of hardcore, experimental, and "alternative" sounds. Some may find it all a bit too arty for their tastes, but it's at least worth checking out if you see it at the store....
This arrived in my mailbox and was an unexpected surprise -- a hybrid sort of thing, part comic and part zine. Put out by Clay Henss, who obviously has a fondness for senseless violence in the arts (DEAD ANGEL approves of senseless art AND senseless violence, so the combination is a good one), the comic part apparently concerns the adventures of a Terminator-type woman with a large hand-cannon who's been chased by a bad guy with even larger munitions. The bad guy wants to deliver her head back on a plate to other bad guys; she has other ideas... and in between they blow up cars, buildings, and a fitness center. Yee haw! Not quite the violence/page count ratio of MILK AND CHEESE, but plenty enough for good clean fun. The back section is more zinelike, including letters and contributed art (among the pieces is a twisted li'l piece called "Grr" that i really like), and a section reviewing other comics and zines. Not a bad effort at all. For enthusiasts of mayhem. For more info, drop a line to Clay Henss at 11910 White Bluff, Apt #1-3, Savannah, GA 31419; or you could just email him at [ Jbumby6913@Hotmail.com ]....
MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA # 1
Interesting, if all over the map -- going by the grim reaper artwork on the cover, the gothic lettering, and the promise of extreme music reviews, at first glance this would appear to be a death-metal zine, and to some extent it is... but it also wanders from that focus a bit with a rant against Nathaniel Hawthorne (?!?) and praise for Harry Browne's THE GREAT LIBERTARIAN OFFER. The reviews are mainly of older stuff -- no surprise for a first issue (i remember being in that boat with the first few issues of DA) -- and there's no real focus, but that's okay; with interviews with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and Bongwater 666, the zine is on the right track.... And I have to think kindly of anybody who says nice things about The Cure's PORNOGRAPHY....
MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA # 2
Already improvements are taking place with the second issue -- the artwork is expanded, the zine is bigger, and the layout this time is much nicer. Newer stuff is starting to show up in the review sections, which is good, and -- unusual for a hand-tooled zine -- there's actual some color pictures around this time. A couple of interesting essays on Nietzschean thought, DeSade, and unpopular culture round out the issue, along with an interview with the Neo-Socialist Party/Socialist Reform Party and an interview with the guitarist of Alucard. The zine is obviously still finding its feet, but improving rapidly enough that I'm looking forward to the third issue -- particularly if he's able to get reviews of more recent stuff going.
MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA # 3
This Satanic print zine, the brainchild of Fenris Wolf of Caligulian Madness Productions, continues to expand in size and quality. -- this issue is over forty pages long and crammed full of essays (usually on Satanism and related topics), reviews of extreme film and music, and several interviews with the likes of Kult of Azazel, Dale Roy from CANADIAN ASSAULT ZINE, and Draconis Blackthorne (Order of the Black Dragon). Dark poetry, essays about individuality and feminism, and extremely surreal offerings (i don't quite dare call them essays) from one Salem Burke make for a mishmash of subjects, but that's what i like about this zine -- it's all over the place instead of being stuck in one subject all the time. The layout this time is a big improvement over earlier issues (and is destined to improve even further in the next issue), and the zine as a whole has a level of substance and interesting subject matter that makes it one of the better ones out there right now. Normally i try to refrain from plugging stuff i'm actually involved with in any fashion, in the interests of "journalistic credibility" (doesn't that sound ridiculous in the context of DEAD ANGEL, which is all but a pack of lies to begin with? ANU! ANU!), but this truly is one of the more interesting (and jam-packed zines i've seen lately, so here i pronounce it worthy of your attention, assuming you burn with lust in the first place for news of the extreme and the Left Hand Path. Stay tuned for the continued growth of what may well turn out to be an important underground publication....
MEAT CAKE # 1 by Dame Darcy (Fantagraphics)
I like this a lot, even though Darcy can't spel worth a dam. From the front cover (a long-hair siamese twin at a birthday party, with one french kissing a wolf and the other eyeing a headless animal while wielding a BIG knife) to back (weird art of a mermaid doll, tacky kitsch style) to everything in between, this is the most surreal thing i've seen in a while. Among other things, one story ("The Wishing Star") is drawn so that after you reach the forth panel at the bottom of the page, you can turn the comic upside-down and continue reading the story -- the pictures can be interpreted differently depending on which direction you view them, with captions for both ways. Uh, okay.... My favorite is "The Next Holy Virgin," about two respectable sisters who are pillars of the community until Miss Caledonia apparently becomes pregnant and starts proclaiming herself to be the second coming of the holy virgin and eating only boiling soup made from salt and rocks; eventually she starts carving the number nine into everything she sees, including herself, and finally convinces her sister to deliver the baby by homemade Caesarean -- only to have the sister discover that it's all been psychomatic and there is no baby. EEP! But she lives and doesn't remember any of it and... jeez, how weird... and the mermaid story is pretty loopy in its own right....
METALLICA: THE FRAYED ENDS OF METAL by Chris Crocker (St. Martins)
Well, this doesn't quite SUCK... but it's lurking in the ballpark. So what we have here is a book by a guy smart enough to quote William S. Burroughs (he IS the guy who invented the term "heavy metal," you know) and dumb enough to leave out lots and lots of stuff. In other words, if you were already into Metallica in the first place, there's no real good reason to go buy this, since you know 97% of it already (borrow it from the library, like i did).
Actually, my big beef is that outside of a few hilarious photos of the band in the early days, there's not much DIRT in here -- kind of odd, given the band's notoriously obnoxious behavior over the years. Crocker, in fact, manages to make them come across as almost squeaky-clean, which is pretty hilarious for anyone who knows more than a smidgen about the band.... For instance: while mention is made of the Montreal stadium date with Guns and Roses in which James managed to set himself on fire (got to watch where you STEP when you use pyrotechnics, guy!), Crocker sort of conveniently leaves out the fact that most of the reason James wasn't paying attention was because he had gotten a bottle broken over his head in a barfight the night before and was still kind of loopy. He also leaves out the "tour rider" drama (in which James read parts of GNR's tour rider in their home video and was sufficiently obnoxious enough about it that Axl went into a foaming rage and threatened to sue the band, the director, Elektra, and probably the poor schumcks who put the video together at the factory), or the time Lars and James got arrested in Europe for climbing on top of a movie marquee to kick out all the light bulbs, or the whole "Edna" business.
Another really annoying thing is that occasionally Crocker HINTS at some sordid pecadillo... and then never says anything more. This is REALLY, REALLY irritating. When he mentions that Lloyd Grant (the original guitarist) and Ron McGovney (the original bassist) left because they "weren't working out," he sort of forgets to explain WHY they weren't working out... and I would have liked to know, seeing as how this subject (like the ouster of Dave Mustaine) remains hazy since the band has always managed to avoid discussing these things. I don't know if this was an "approved" bio or not, but it sure SMELLS like it....
Still, the book DOES explain how Metallica managed to jump from Megaforce to Elektra, and gives an inside look at the recording of the early albums, along with a few other interesting tidbits that i didn't know about. (Not many, though.) But he also gets a couple of things wrong -- such as when he talks about the liner notes in KILL 'EM ALL early in the band's career; well, the original album didn't HAVE liner notes (i know 'cause i had it), and neither did the original CD on Megaforce. He's actually referring to the REISSUE CD that came out several years after the time frame he's discussing. Oops! There's a few other moments of sloppy research, but for the most part it all is largely on track, if not entirely revealing.
So... if you already read all the magazine articles, then you pretty much know what's in here. If you didn't and don't want to go hunt for them, this will do. Until a better one comes along. (Hopefully one with more DIRT.)
Ah, another book nominally about one of DEAD ANGEL's favorite subjects, serial killers -- this one by (with, uh, some "editorial assistance") John Douglas, the FBI Behavioral Science maverick who instituted (along with Robert Ressler) the practice of psychological profiling as a tool to catch killers based on what the evidence left behind during their crimes had to suggest about their behavior and psychology. You know who John Douglas is to a degree, even if the name is unfamiliar; he's the guy who served as the "model" for the character of Jack Crawford in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
It's possible -- and interesting -- to think of this book as a companion piece to WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS, a book by his partner Robert Ressler that came out a couple of years ago. The two books cover much the same ground, obviously, and several cases are mentioned in both books; Edmund Kemper, Richard Speck, and David Berkowitz figure prominently in both. The differences, though, appear in the way the two very different men approach things; where Ressler's book was analytical, calm, and by-the-book "professional," Douglas' attitude is much more confrontational, vivid, and emotional. It's eye-opening to read both books and see such significantly different views of the same subjects and same cases, particularly in regard to certain killers like Richard Speck and Lawrence Bittaker.
Of the two, Ressler's book is probably "better," although this one is certainly fascinating in its own right. This one also affords a close look at the case involving the Atlanta child murders and the Tylenol poisonings (neither of which were discussed in Ressler's book; he was too busy going on about more gruesome stuff), plus Douglas' chatty, emotionally-charged style (think of him as a kamikaze pilot dive-bombing into the heart of Serial Killer U.S.A. and you have the basic idea) makes this book an "easier read," i suppose. Better yet, check out both of them and then watch THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS again... even though RED DRAGON is better....
Now, THIS is the kind of zine i can get behind -- rambling, eccentric, and about as concerned with "corporate aesthetics" as a big brown bear worries where it takes a dump in the woods. (I think i committed a vile conjunctive sin in their somewhere, but let it stand, i say, let it stand!) Beyond the cryptic title (and no, it has nothing to do with the "pro-life" movement), this contains such essential goodies as pix of the incredible Squirt Wee- Boy Doll (a doll that pisses when you pull down its pants), a bizarre tribute to KISS, lots of truly demented cartoons, an equally demented UFO conspiracy theory article, obsessive and scary excerpts from some love- addled teenage girl's diary, and (for no real good reason, which is the way it SHOULD BE) a compelling look at the music scene in Russia. The magazine bows to convention only in the inclusion of a couple of interviews (Sebadoh, Come, plus a Crispin Glover article) and movie/record reviews. The records reviews are my favorite part of the zine; Dave Stacey includes eight-tracks in the stew and reviews alternate between humorously cranky and flat-out hallucinatory. Extremely, obnoxiously essential reading.
More bad craziness from these loopy, loopy people. Dig the fluorescent colors on the cover -- screaming hot pink and yellow -- i'll never need to own a flashlight again! Rah! Inside are many cartoons, some quite disturbed, another (long) "Dear Diary" excerpt that's even more fucked up than the stuff in # 1, weird fiction, Dame Darcy (she's everywhere!) and TInuvuel on the subject of twins, plus interviews with/articles about Blonde Redhead, Red Krayola, The Supreme Dicks, and more. There's also a most happening article on tape trading.... As with the first issue, the highlight is in Dave Stacey's willfully iconoclastic review column ("if any of this has offended you: I don't give a damn"), in which the reviews provide an excuse for him to rant about stuff that only marginally has any relevance to the record in question is not only more entertaining but probably reveals more about the "flavor" of said item under scrutiny than a "real" review ever could. The Headless Sno-Cone Girl reads MAIAO with zest while sitting on the Big White Throne; shouldn't YOU?
More high-octone HELL from Boston (well, sort of) -- read it if you DARE!!! (See, they are so swank that they rate three exclamation points. REMEMBER THAT. File it in your databank... there WILL be a test.) It's every bit as weird as the first two issues were, with all sorts of loopy shit -- a mondo interview with Lisa "Suckdog" Carver talking about life, childhood, drugs, trouble, and "the Suckdog experience"; bizarre captured email from the Bjork internet fangeeks working themselves into such a lather that they start discussing ways to stalk the Impish One; unabashed Olivia Newton-John/XANADU worship (it must have been the drugs); ranting about God, angels, and cannibalism; a creepy story about suicide; an intriguing look at the sordid drama behind Tony Alamo and his twisted religious empire (if you wanna know who he is, hmmm, guess you'll have to read the thing, eh?); more disturbed trauma from the DEAR DIARY section... total sensory overload! Your tiny skull will crushed into paste and spread across Wilma Flintstone's sewing room wall! HA!
They also have weird cartoons (some single-panel, scattered throughout the magazine, and some full-length, all of them vacillating between twisted and extremely disturbed) and, of course, REVIEWS. I like the reviews in MAIAO because a) Dave Stacey makes it clear upfront that he reviews only stuff he likes (why waste time pissing and moaning about stuff you hate when you can just throw it away?) and b) he has this tendency to ramble while he reviews, sometimes wandering completely away from the point into something massively more entertaining (hmmm, that sounds familiar). Issue Fave: the review of Douce Gimlet's record, which ends with the line "Father, let the pigs be pigs! I'm going dancing!" I... I couldn't have said it any better MYSELF....
More bizarre eye-candy and sheer information overload. Bands interviewed this time around: Fuzzy, Cat Power, Boss Hog, and Cindy Dall. There's also an interview with filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and one with Pop Narcotic's Bill Peregoy, both of which are interesting. But the REAL focus of MAIAO lie in the, ah, "psychotronic" articles ("So I Thought My Neighbor Was the Unabomber...," "Alan Abel... Media Hoaxer!," and a long article about the relationships between Scientology and Satanism that invokes long passages about Anton LaVey, Charles Manson, and L. Ron Hubbard) and all the semi- deranged artwork crammed in every blank space on just about every page. Really twisted stuff. Many pages are devoted to full-size serial cartoon strips... just a big mess o' visual overload. Plus surreal bite-sized music reviews from everyone's fave iconoclast Dave Stacey. What more do you want, dammit, naked centerfolds? Investigate it if you can....
Ah, another issue of the zine with the idiosyncrastic name (whose origins JR has pledged never to reveal -- and he was a man of his word even when i applied the steaming iron to his feet, even as he screamed "NEVER! NEVER shall i reveal the meaning of the title! No force on earth can make me!") by the former guitarist for Batromyomachia here in Austin. It's printed, small (trade paperback size), cheap ($2.00 postpaid anywhere in the USA), and most entertaining. This issue contains interviews with God is My Co- Pilot, Anthony Coleman, and Juliana Leuking, an extensive guide to the recordings of the Hafler Trio, record reviews, and various other ephemera floating throughout the zine. He continues to do a piece called "Reviews of Reviews" that is my favorite part of the zine -- so favorite, in fact, that i am tempted to shamelessly steal his idea -- in which he caustically reviews the reviews of OTHER magazines who spout off flippant nonsense (meaning that he could probably devote an issue's worth of this section just to reviewing the record reviews in one month's issue of ALTERNATIVE PRESS alone). In this issue, he takes to task Lang Thompson for his shoddy review of Brise-Glace's WHEN IN VANITAS... (from OPTION # 60), and with great acidity (go, Nigel, GO!).
One of the things i like most about this zine is that the interviews are always interesting, even when they're with bands i'm not so wild about (such as, ah, God is My Co-Pilot, whom i don't "grok" at all, so sorry). Plus Josh is a smartass, which always helps immensely. (His take on the Diamanda Galas/John Paul Jones CD, which i could smell from a mile away and thus avoided, is particularly amusing.) He also picks interesting (read: avant-garde) choices for interviewees, which makes for informative reading (especially in the case of Juliana Leuking, whom i'd never heard of, but whose work sounds intriguing enough that i might have to check it out). So you should investigate this zine, for even though it is "mucho texto! scanto picto!" (which is how i like it anyway, if i wanna see pictures i can always go pay my $5 and buy the new goddamn issue of AP that won't have any pictures i LIKE anyway, and besides, it DOES have pictures, just not lots of them, but many are quite humorous and i'd tell you more about them except a few were probably "borrowed" without consent so i'll hush now), it is also a good one, even typeset for maximum readability.
MORBID CURIOSITY # 3 [Automatism Press]
Time for another installment of the most morbid zine from California, Loren Rhoads' ongoing attempt to document episodes of the entertainingly weird, morbid, and freakish from all walks of life. Included this time are pieces on sexual fantasies involving Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls, living through earthquakes, ruminations from several people enduring debilitating diseases, the architecture of train stations, bits on bouts with illicit substances (several of these), behind the scenes on the job with an X-FILES researcher, observations from a corset fetishist, the (lengthy) observations of a scarification fetishist, and more... much, much more. Plus there are piles of reviews of books related to morbid and gothic interests, informative and interesting reviews (one was so interesting, in fact, that i actually went out and bought the book in question). The beauty of a zine such as this is that, inevitably, given the sheer number and variety of subjects covered, there's going to be something that interests you... the drawback, of course, is that there will be several others that don't. As it happens, my favorite articles were Geoff Walker's first-hand description of life in a federal prison and the politics thereof; Mason Jones' article about visiting a firing range for the first time with friends (which partly sparked the lengthy editorial on guns earlier in this issue); the aforementioned tales of the X-FILES researcher; and Loren's own amazing article about the church of bones in Prague, complete with nifty, eerie photos. Another point of interest were the sidebars everywhere detailing arcana related to the current article at hand and the many peculiar drawings and photos scattered almost randomly through the zine (which, at 112 pages in a professionally printed package, is actually closer in size and feel to a ReSEARCH book, a design that i suspect in entirely intentional). All in all, this is a fairly swank offering and you would be wise to pick it up and page through it next time you're at the friendly weird-artifact emporium or obscure record store.
MORBID CURIOSITY # 4 [Automatism Press]
The latest installment in Loren Rhoads' ongoing love affair with all that is curiously morbid. As with previous issues, this is chock-full o' writings -- usually in first-person, from experience -- on a variety of subjects that most people would rather not talk about in public. We have musings on castration (ouchie!), hearse drivers, the misuse of special-effects corpses, what it's like to wait for the results of an AIDS test, scarification and self-mutilation, teenage sex offenders, time travel, UFO abduction experiences, being stalked, riding with crazy people on the bus, shamanism, homicidal ex-boyfriends... the list goes on. It all generally makes for pretty fascinating reading, to say the least! Rather than spoiling the surprise by going into details on the articles, I'll just say that you really need to read this. With lots of drawings, weird artwork, and photos to accompany the articles, there's plenty of eye-candy to hold your attention. The review section (mainly of like-minded books and movies) is educational in itself. At 112 pages with every page crammed full o' info, this is the current definition of information overload and you need it... you want it... what more can you ask for at a price of only six bucks? Find it and all shall be revealed....
MORBID CURIOSITY # 6 [Automatism Press]
The latest issue of MORBID CURIOSITY is every bit as deviant and absorbing as previous issues. This time the themes covered include Alzheimer's disease, curses, fireworks, funeral hearses, graveyards (big surprise), homophobia, L.S.D., nursing the dying, rhinoplasty, sleeping in a casket, spinal injections, and all sorts of other stuff that most people don't discuss in polite (or conservative) company. My favorite essays this time around are "Human Frailty On Display" (Kimberlee Traub), about looking at the specimen displays (some of them quite grotesque) in Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, complete with pictures of two-headed fetuses and other creeped-out stuff; "Closed Casket" (Brian Thomas), about sleeping in a rented casket; "Imagining Porn" (Gravity Goldberg), about appearing in a porn film; "19357-019" (Geoff Walker), a succinct summation of being in prison and being released to a new awakening of sorts; and "Of Little Faith" (Loren Rhoads), about visiting her grandmother's grave. The many other stories are every bit as unusual and interesting, and the art/photos scattered throughout the book are often quite exotic, even sinister. Reviews of all that which is morbid are most helpful as well too. If you aren't yet hep to this exotic magazine, this is a fine place to start....
MOTLEY CRUE: THE DIRT [Regan Books]
I'll give them this right off: this is probably the most candid rock-bio -- hell, most candid anything -- i've ever read. Told primarily by the hoodlums themselves (with a few choice comments from a few of the victims of their endless ire and hooliganism), what emerges is an endless orgy of drugs, thievery, assault, unprotected sex, violence, screaming, throwing things, crashing expensive automobiles, blow jobs from porn stars, blow jobs from groupies, blow jobs from anything that will open its mouth, drugs, booze, blackouts, jails, drug dealers, dead people, gun threats from the yakuza, vicious beatings, more car crashes, publicized homemade porn, more violence, more lurid sex, and occasionally -- every once in a while -- music. (The only way they had time for it for a while was while doing all these other things, so if their early albums sound like they might have been a tad distracted, well, that's because they were.) Basically the book comes across like the world's most famously dysfunctional family that ever managed to make millions of dollars to methodically spend on lawsuits, alimony, wrecked cars, dope, and other foolishness. All four members (and even John Corabi, Neil's temporary replacement) explain in their own words (with focus provided by cowriter Neil Strauss) how four high-school dropouts managed to end up filthy rich and in constant trouble. Some of their anecdotes are real eye-opening, to say the least, and unlike some tell-all bios, in this one they name names. They're real upfront about the identities of everyone who's pissed them off and everyone they've managed to alienate (both lists are mighty long too). They're real graphic about a great many events. And they address pretty much everything -- no weaseling out for these guys: numerous arrests, Vince and Tommy's stints in jail, endless fistfights, the death of Razzle from Vince's drunk-driving accident, marriages to superstars and Playmates, the entire band's descent into dope hell... all of it gets covered straight from the shoulder. They even helpfully include police reports and mug shots and occasionally even comments from people on the other side of dispute in question. Needless to say, regardless of what you think of the Crue, they're certainly not dull....
The thing i always liked about Motley Crue from the very beginning was that they weren't a bunch of middle-class pretty boys just making rock to get laid, they were genuinely psychotic white trash on drugs making music to get laid. The bare-bones scan of their early history makes them a lot closer to the likes of Sex Pistols or the Heartbreakers than W.A.S.P. or Skid Row. It is true that in the early days they were fairly marginal players (with the exception of Mick Mars, who's always been a much better guitarist than he's given credit for), but so what? Joy Division were borderline bad when they started, and most of the skinny-tie bands weren't any better in terms of technical talent -- hell, even on SHOUT AT THE DEVIL they're at least as good players as anybody in the Sex Pistols. And just as with the Sex Pistols, their attitude was far more important to them than the actual music itself (although at points the music has been more important than you'd suspect). The guys in Motley Crue were a lot more like the people i hung out with at the time than any exotic superstar musicians in the news, and even when they became ridiculously famous (often for all the wrong reasons), have always been a tad more human than a lot of faceless bands who spend a lot of time perfecting their image. They were also always a lot more upredictable and out-of-control, which always has universal appeal, right? Let's face it, they're sociopaths, but they're charming sociopaths, which is all that really counts anymore these days....
The most interesting passages in the book, to me, are the ones coming from guitarist Mick Mars. He shuns interviews in general and was always more successful at staying out of the news and in the background, than his bandmates, so this might be the first time to get any real insight to him. He emerges as the relative voice of sanity in the Crue camp, and far more direct than any of them, a no-bullshit country boy gone bad but still with enough sense to say what he needs to say and nothing else. He also has a black sense of humor (so does Sixx, but Mick's is a tad more arch, if you can imagine that), and i find it kind of interesting that while the other guys have had all these public problems, he's been quietly living with a bone disease that's killing him. Unlike the rest of this cohorts, he tends to stay on-point and keep his ruminations short, also a point in his favor....
This has actually been out for ages, but i just picked it up and it's not exactly well-known, so here it is. And what an amazing thing it is. For those not in the know, Suehiro Maruo is a Japanese manga artist famous not only for his truly excellent artwork, but for telling some of the most depraved, grotesque stories ever imagined. This certainly ranks right up there with the creepiest of them. It's the story of Midori, a young orphan girl who's tricked into virtual slavery for a freak-show circus, where she is bullied and tormented in really hideous fashion by the freaks... until the arrival of Matasami the Bottled Wonder, who takes her under his wing and becomes her lover/mentor. Matasami is a pointy-haired midget with the amazing ability to pour himself into a bottle... or so it seems. He is really, in fact, a frightening illusionist -- capable of nightmarish acts of mass hypnotism. At one point when an audience member nastily calls him a "fucking midget," he appears to cause the entire audience to distort their bodies into deformed, monstrous shapes, all of which suddenly rights itself when the police arrive. He later gets revenge upon a freak-show guy who's been hitting on Midori by hypnotizing him into believing he's being swallowed by quicksand, while in reality he's force-feeding sand down the guy's throat. Talk about disturbed shit, this is IT.
There's a lot of amazingly grotesque behavior happening here -- sick freak-fucking, eyeball-licking, many scatalogical moments, and lots of disturbingly realistic drawings of graphic violence and deformity. A romp through the more disturbed crevices of the mind, to be sure. But that's what i like about Maruo -- his ability to depict these things in amazing technical detail. A great book. Probably hard as hell to find, but worth the search....
MUSIC FOR TORCHING by A. M. Homes [Weisbach Morrow]
Apparently the writing dictum that short-story writers flounder forever as novelists (and vice-versa) is not entirely true -- the eternally creepy Homes is starting to get the hang of the long form after all. After a brilliant start as with a nihilistic scattering of stories eventually collected into the volume THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS, she moved into the novel arena with a series of interesting but flawed books, including IN A COUNTRY OF MOTHERS, a frightening look at obsession marred by long stretches of aimlessness, and more recently the controversial tome THE END OF ALICE, which was flawed by an overly sensationlistic shock-approach and, in places, a plot line that was not always completely coherent. But with this book, she has overcome most of those problems. She's still intensely embroiled in nihilism, but for the first time the plot actually makes sense all the way through, the book's energy doesn't flag, and -- most importantly -- she keeps the freak show under control. In the past she's had a tendency to derail the momentum of her books by delving too deeply into the side characters and their own personal freakouts; this time she keeps all the attention squarely focused on the two principals, Paul and Elaine. average suburbanites with two boys and a plethora of personal problems. Even more heartening, she actually displays a sense of humor, however morbid it may be (with Homes, you're never too far from the gallows), which is most beneficial in keeping things from getting too ponderous.
The freakshow remains her favorite mileu, though -- make no mistake about that. Over the course of the book we find that Paul and Elaine are basically having a mutual mid-life meltdown (which results early on in them deciding "aaaah fuck it, let's set our house on fire"), we meet kinky housewifes who end up in the sack with both Paul and Elaine (just not at the same time), kinky girlfriends with curious phone habits, teenage boys into fat-girl porn, a rapist cop, neighbors who take over their house, psychotic architects, and creeps galore. Homes invests the suburban experience with an otherworldly bizarreness that suggests that all of society is essentially insane, and speeds the book toward a gruesome and unexpected conclusion. (She does still have a bad habit of springing the conclusion in a sudden and almost arbitrary manner, but hey, no one's perfect.) While i still think IN A COUNTRY OF MOTHERS is the creepiest thing she's ever written (THE END OF ALICE is a wee bit over the top to qualify, i think), this is certainly a contender for the title, particularly in light of the way the book ends. If you haven't hopped on the Homes bandwagon yet, this would be the place to start.
I am usually a big fan of Kathy Acker, and this one delivers the usual subversiveness I've come to expect. Acker's biggest "blow" to the novel is a refusal to become fixed in any novelistic form. She starts a storyline, drops it for another, and never finishes either one. Some would call it pretentious postmodern bullshit, and I would agree with them. But, I happen to like such pretention.
The biggest question would be why I enjoy such nonsense. Acker's fiction is always "centered" on the question of identity. She uses the novelistic form to explore the issue of identity formation. Contrary to popular belief, identity is not formed using a linear model. It progresses in fits and starts, never quite reaching the "goal." Acker's characters never really develop into full-blown "people." MY FATHER: starts with what is supposed to be the story of the protagonist, an unnamed woman. Her story is blended with pieces of American history, current events, and a rewritten version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
What do we learn about the protagonist? That she's afraid of becoming a fixed identity, afraid of being "named" and reified. That she's afraid of being alone because identity is based on reception. There are recurring images to reinforce this exposition of identity formation. Each plot thread is thematically linked, not temporally linked.
The "story line" is nonexistent. There are brief plot lines, but nothing forming a coherent "story." For those who are looking for solid read, a good story, this isn't a book for you. But, for those who are looking for more of an intellectual statement, I recommend this book. It is more of an intellectual stament than a piece of fiction. [bc]
The sharp-eyed among you may well recognize the name Blake Edwards, for he is the perpetrator of all that is Vertonen. As it happens, he also has an abiding interest in writing -- or, in this case, defacing and abusing poetry (with help from pal Sherman Johnson). The concept is clear: They took poems and passages from such writers as Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Cocteau, then willfully mistranslated them into peculiar forms. The results are fairly amusing and occasionally even illuminating. I particularly like the way Cocteau's "Vesuve" somehow ended up being retitled "What Shit Will Be Like After the Big Explosion." As a bonus for those interested in the clockwork, the back of the book is a section devoted to "process," in which you can see how they labored to arrive at these reworked versions. The book is available in a limited run (200 copies) for five bucks each, so if it sounds like your kind of lyrical schwing, send yer $$$ to: Incremental Press, P.O. Box 628, Village Station, New York, NY 10014-0628.
The new issue is out, after an apparently long wait (I wasn't waiting because this is the first one I've actually read), and it's pretty happening. N D is an experimental/noise magazine from Austin, Texas (the home of DEAD ANGEL!), and it's full of interesting interviews, tons of (short!) reviews of albums by people you've never heard of, obscure publications, and pointers toward useful catalogs and other resources. Interviewed this time around are the Dutch label Staalplat, G.R.O.S.S. label and Aube-guy Akfumi Nahajima, Ellen Fullman, AMM, Anna Holmes, Robert Rich, Christoph Heeman, and others; there's also an interesting article on mail art in Mexico, a listing of mailart news and projects happening throughout the world, plus a short interview with pyrotechnic artist Steve Rife (Saint Arson). All for under four dollars! Yow! Highly recommended, check it out....
STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS BEFORE: Two men are sitting in a bar (most likely Lounge Ax) getting hammered. Pixilated beyond all belief, the first one says: "I got a joke for you, buddy. What's the four words Dan Plunkett most dreads hearing these days?" The other guy says, "I dunno." And the first drunk sniggers, "Is it out yet?" [cue canned laugh track]
Well, you can stop laughing now; it IS finally out. And it's a double issue to boot. Not only does it look immensely hip (mostly courtesy of M. Northam, who apparently was quite puzzled by DEAD ANGEL's eccentric review of THE STOMACH OF THE SKY last issue), but it is absolutely loaded with relevant goodies. A partial list of interviews includes Susanne Lewis, JLIAT, Colin Potter, Michael Prime, Andrew Chalk, David Jackman (Organum), MSBR, and Willem DeRidder; in addition, there is a Q&A with the label empreintes DIGITALes and an extensive dissection and appreciation of the now-defunct New Blockaders by Toshiji Mikawa of Incapacitants. All of the interviews/articles are interesting and insightful, occasionally even entertaining (proving that high art doesn't HAVE to be stuffy). As an added bonus, there is SO MUCH to read here that it will take you eons, perfect if you have to ride the bus to and from work (as DEAD ANGEL does) and can't stand spending $$$ on magazines that can be read in thirty minutes.
As with previous issues, there are sections devoted to mail art contacts, radio contacts, and other passages dealing with exchange of information. The audio review section is appropriately lengthy for a double issue, compiling bite-sized reviews of a truly staggering number of releases, probably in the hundreds (i'd count them, but i only have ten fingers and toes). There's also a section on the offerings of a certain number of particular labels, a section of half-pint reviews of readable junk, and more... not to mention that the advertisements, from just about every damn tiny/obscure label on Earth it seems like, are an education into themselves. WISE UP MOLEBOY... forget about wasting yer six bucks on that next fattening slab o' ground-up dead cow and buy this instead. You'll feel better. Much better....
NURTURE THE DEVIL # 1 by Jeff Johnson (Fantagraphics)
Weird stuff about a recently-widowed man whose teenaged daughter leads him around by the nose and forces him to torture her brothers and makes them wear dresses, among other things. In the meantime, weird mutants are apparently having sex orgies in the woods... it's all very strange and depraved, made even more so by the vaguely Diana-influenced artwork (only more detailed, with lots of etching). Plus there's a story about fetuses porking each other in the womb and eating their mother, and something at the end so truly weird that i'm not even sure it can be described. Not for the weak or the easily offended. Dr. Wortham would not have approved of this comic....
ONLY CHILD by Andrew Vachss [Knopf]
Well, i was going to get into a real detailed thing about the new Burke novel, but the issue's late (again) and you don't really care, do you? So let's make this short: Burke returns to New York to ferret out the killer of the illegitimate child of a Mafia boss, and while it's good to see him back home with his chosen family, the plot of this one -- involving the makers of brutality cinema and sinister "reality films" and the like -- often feels kind of forced. This one doesn't flow as well as some of the earlier ones, and while it's not bad by any means, there are moments where it feels like Vachss is going through the motions. The ride is every bit as cutthroat and leavened with draining minimalism in its prose as previous outings, however, so it's definitely essential. It's interesting to see that Burke, along with his comrades, is steadily aging -- just the advancement of his age alone, particularly in such a dangerous profession, leads me to believe any Burke book that follows could well be the last one. If you're not already familiar with the Burke series, though, this is not the place to start....
ONGAKU OTAKU # 1 (Automatism Press)
This is the first issue of the Japanese music/culture zine put out by Mason Jones of Charnel Music/Trance, and it's, uh, been out a while. It's taken me this long to pick it up because i... i... um... bullies kept beating me up and taking my lunch money! That's it! Uh huh! Anyway, i finally got it and it's tremendously swank. This issue features interviews with Der Eisenrost (the group featuring Chu Ishikawa, he of the TETSUO: THE IRON MAN soundtrack), Omoide Hatoba, Seed Mouth, K2, and Children Coup d'Etat; label profiles of Alchemy Records and Monellaphone Cassettes; a tour diary (with MANY references to food) of Trance's visit to Japan, live show reviews, piles of record reviews, and lots more. All of it is tremendously cool. You need this badly, if for no other reason than it offers a wealth of info about the Japanese psychadelic/noise scene that you just can't find anywhere else, including a pretty much complete listing of everything available on Alchemy and stuff like that, including reviews of a lot of interesting Japanese movies you'll probably never be able to find here in the US (arrgh). The new issue is in the works, by the way....
Oooo, supreme hepness. The second issue of this intermittent zine devoted to things Japanese (mostly music and film) is just stuffed full o' swank shit that you should not want to live without. Witness: interviews with eternally cute-yet-heavy funk/noise/metal goddesses Super Junky Monkey, Aube, Otomo Yoshide, Shizuka, and Jojo Hiroshige (guitar abuser for noise godz Hijokaidan and producer of godlike Angel'in Heavy Syrup); in-depth articles on the labels God Mountain and Japan Overseas; cool text and pix on Katan Amano, maker of spooky dolls (like the one on the cover of THE LAND OF THE RISING NOISE); weird shit about Japanese coffee (it comes in cans for some inexplicable reason); etc., etc. etc.
As usual, one of the niftiest things is the Japan travelogue. Seeing as how this is produced mainly by Mason Jones of Charnel, who has business in Japan periodically, apparently each issue will include a travel diary of his latest trip overseas. This one is much more detailed than the one in the first issue, and includes a lot of hanging out/performing with the likes of Angel'in Heavy Syrup, Masonna, Solmania, Shizuka, Aube, Sekiri, and more. Plus food. Lots of food. And as always, there are PILES of reviews of esoteric Japanese films and music releases for your edification.
The best thing in this issue, though, is the stunning manga story by Koji Tano of MSBR. "The Fool Who Fell to Hell" starts out as a reasonably typical paranoid-fantasy story (a sweaty homeless guy watches kids playing in the park and flashes back to hellish school days) before the bottom falls out (literally -- he falls in a hole down to hell) and the whole thing becomes surreal, grotesque, and not a little bit scary. The pix of the minotaur demon squashing damned souls with a huge cement block and then stuffing them all in his mouth is completely amazing. Hopefully there will be more to come in this vein from Tano, for this is unspeakably cool....
Mason Jones, head spud of Charnel, returns with yet another fun-packed issue of this journal of "Japanese independent music." Interviews this time around include Grind Orchestra, Ruins, MSBR, Cornelius, Coa, Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Melt-Banana, Shonen Knife (!), Ghost, and Kenji Yanobe. All of the interviews are good and most go on for several pages and include many, many pix; my personal favorites are the ones with the insane grind-ass duo Coa (two women named Bill and Eddie -- don't ask -- playing like the Japanese equivalent of Unsane, only not even that "accessible") and the one with Ruins. I would have liked the Shonen Knife one a lot better had it been longer, but life is like that.... The other main highlight is, as always, a new installment of the Japan Tour Diary, this one from April 1997. Koji Tano contributes another manga story (although it's not quite as brilliant as the previous issue's offering, it's still fun to read), and there are plenty of movie and album reviews, as usual. Given the magazine's overwhelming flood of hep info and how good it looks (the design gets better every issue), it's well worth the cover cost (which is... uh... I forget, but it's somewhere around six bucks).
ONGAKU OTAKU # 4 [Automatism Press]
The latest issue of Mason Jones' irregularly-published guide to the Japanese independent music scene is possibly the best one yet, although i may be biased since it leads off with an extensive cover story on Null. Consider what else you get in the issue, though -- interviews with DemiSemiQuaver, Ningen Isu, Little Fujiko, Jack or Jive, and Billy?, plus more pictures and writing on Japanese dolls, a Haters tour diary, and a guide to the Tokyo club scene and music stores. Plus there's manga and piles o' reviews of cool obscure shit from the land o' the rising noise. This may well be the last issue of the magazine and i have my doubts as to how likely it is to be reprinted when it eventually sells out, so you might want to start moving now....
ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT by Stephen King
This is one of the most interesting book King's written, I think, and only the second full-length nonfiction book he's released (the other is DANSE MACABRE, a rambling and often sardonically funny history of horror film and fiction). While it's nominally a book about the craft of writing (check out the title, right), it's really more than that, and it's the other sections that most people will find far more intriguing (although i have to say that i really liked the writing section). The first section is entitled "C.V." (for Curriculum VItae) and is essentially a loose collection of snapshots from King's life, carefully culled to provide some explanation for how he drifted into doing what currently makes him such a big deal. Here he offers previously unseen glimpses of his childhood, goes into more detail about some things already familiar to Kingophiles (such as the story of CARRIE's sale), and gets amazingly frank about some issues (his battle with alcoholism and drug addiction) that will come as entirely new revelations to most readers. Throughout the section, his manner is by turns candid, humorous, sardonic, and -- particularly in the description of his mother's death from cancer -- surprisingly moving.
The second section is the meat of the matter, the part of the book where he describes his writer's toolbox and suggests how would-be writers can develop and use similar tools of their own. It's here that he finally dispels (or tries, anyway) the belief that he is "just a hack." His commitment to good writing and his obvious knowledge of what makes a book work is well worth reading. It's also amusing to see him rant about writing boo-boos in such a fashion that the average reader may well wonder, "What is he getting so wound up about?" His fiery aversion to the lowly adverb ("The adverb is not your friend," he warns, as he unsheathes the long knives) is the highlight of the section, in fact. The advice he offers (and the casual, but firm, manner in which he offers it) is quite useful and far more entertaining than the usual writing advice offered in books such as the endless stream of product from Writer's Digest Books (i've read most of them, so i'm well-equipped to make the observation).
The final section, though, is the most startling. Called "On Living: A Postcript," he goes into detail -- often excruciating detail -- about the events that led up to the accident that nearly killed him in June of 1999, when he was out walking and a careless driver ran off the road and hit him. He describes everything -- the reason for his presence there, the accident itself, the goofy driver, the trip by helicopter to the hospital, the convalescence and surgery afterward -- with an unusual mix of black humor and absolute horror. At the end of it all, as he relates how he found it difficult to return to writing afterwards (and then only with great assistance from his wife, a fine writer in her own right, incidentally), he points out that art is a support system for life and not the other way around. He reminds himself (as well as his readers) that there is more to life than just books and money. Not a bad thing at all to be reminded of occasionally, i think.