The book is always better than the YouTube, but with a few weeks to go before Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal book is available, at least this video preview offers a quick fix.

Just for you, a photo of the spiffy Burzum shirt worn by a gay German dude getting off the subway in Brooklyn after the gay pride parade in New York last weekend. No, he had no idea who Varg Vikernes is — and yes, he assumed I was hitting on him. When Varg is out on weekend furloughs from prison in Norway, does he see this shirt in swanky boutique windows while out shopping for CDs? He was denied parole again recently, by the way. 

Here’s a juicy bone plucked from the death/thrash/black metal cauldron of 1985. Toronto quartet Sacrifice were nearly as fast and lethal as any other band on the planet when they spewed forth this highly impressive debut demo. They had quickly absorbed all the nuances of Slayer’s Hell Awaits, and pressed the accelerator pedal to climb to D.R.I. Dealing With It speeds. The panic and energy never relent. The hyper instrumental title track makes Death Angel’s “The Ultraviolence” sound as old-school as Iron Maiden’s “Phantom of the Opera.” This demo version of the cut “Decapitation” is still one of the craziest thrash outbursts I’ve ever heard–intense as hell, and sick with evil. While thrashing with insane abandon, the band’s shared lineage with early death metal is undeniable. The semi-epic “Beyond Death” sounds like a matched pair to “Blood Runs From the Altar” by Tomas Lindberg’s old Swedish death metal band Grotesque — but that was years later.

This demo is Diabolic Force 002, the second release on the label best known for unleashing the Canadian band Slaughter on the world. In fact, I bought my copy of the tape on that basis, snatching it from the small demo rack at the legendary Record Peddler in Toronto during a family trip there in late 1985. (My mom found us cheap lodging on the top floor of some kind of insane asylum/hospice where they locked us in at night!) For a little historical perspective on the environment that spawned Sacrifice: every bootleg T-shirt stall on the main strip Yonge St. — and there were dozens — sold Venom and Metallica jerseys, along with a bizarre design popular with Canadian punks that read “Destroy!” above a crucified Jesus with a giant red swastika in the background. Venom’s Possessed and C.O.C.’s Animosity were in every record store window. And the Record Peddler had the Mentors’ You Axed for It and Oral Sex hanging on the wall. For Anvil, Slaughter, Razor, nearby Exciter, and Sacrifice, Toronto deserves a lot of credit for forming underground metal as we know it today.

If you’ve never heard this early Sacrifice stuff, it’s like watching Cannibal Ferox for the first time.

SACRIFICE * “The Exorcism” 8-song demo 1985 [40.2MB .rar]

Thanks to Sacrifice frontman Rob Urbinati for giving thumbs up to this post. By the way, I asked him what they thought about “Decapitation” after laying it down, and he said: “Hmmm, “Decapitation”? I just remember we thought it was the fastest ever!”

The band reunited for shows in 2006 and 2008, following a massive high-quality reissue campaign by Brazilian label Marquee Records. Those South American lunatics have repackaged Sacrifice’s classic Metal Blade albums Torment in Fire, Soldiers of Misfortune, and Forward to Termination, adding tons of bonus tracks including this demo and others. Visit the official Sacrifice site built by Marquee for info, along with extensive band history, videos, vintage photos, and yes — guitar tabs, to help you thrash with real diabolic force.

LINK

Man does not live by blog alone, and in fact the monster project for the past six months has been getting all the pieces in place to publish SWEDISH DEATH METAL by Daniel Ekeroth in a fat, dark new edition. The cover test and page proofs arrived from the printer a couple weeks back–take a look for yourself. By the end of July, every household of ghouls around the world will be able to own a copy, suitable for endless obsessing and secondary use as a butcher’s block. More to come, in the meantime check the pulse here:

Swedish Death Metal book site

Check it out: the two heads on the right of this row of people being astonished by Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden belong to Kate Hudson and Lance Armstrong. No joke. They made out throughout “Iron Maiden,” but never nude. If they thought the gossip rags would pick up on it…well, here you go! 

I bought tickets yesterday on the cheap, and I’m so glad I did. Iron Maiden are unique among major rock bands in that they’ve never forgotten why they’re big. They work the same vein that paid off for them first in 1983, only now in more elaborate ways. And after seeing Van Halen and the Who multiple times in the past couple years for various reasons, Iron Maiden comes off looking and sounding much more impressive. I was proud to be part of a crowd of newly-minted 12-year-old Maiden fans and their equally proud doddering old dads. Best off-Broadway spectacular ever! And fastest costume changes on the old Bruce.

There was a weird incident — midway through “Powerslave,” the sound cut out altogether. The band shrugged their shoulders, looked at each other, and then began kicking a soccer ball around. This went on for at least ten minutes, and believe me the audience barely minded seeing this improvised spectacle. At one point, Bruce picked up a sarcophagus and used it to beat back the soccer ball. Funny stuff. When the power came on, he surprised me by blaming Sharon Osbourne by name in front of the massive crowd, saying she was getting her revenge and that the “wicked witch of west rides again.” Is that British humor, or does he have reason to think Sharon Osbourne still reaching out from afar fucking with Iron Maiden shows? 

Well? This one is either a cinch, or impossible, depending on whether or not you’ve heard the news. Who is this band? From where are they from? I have to say, the bass player looks very much the same after 40 years.

Close yer eyes and comment!

So after kicking back and watching the disappointingly short French Open men’s tennis finals last Sunday [yeah, I know], I fired up some YouTube footage of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe’s insane Wimbledon epic battle in 1980 [yeah, I know]. Not to be outdone by myself, I thought it would be a hoot to see old Torben Ulrich [yeah, I know] kicking up some sod back in his tennis-playing heyday. Instead, I found this peculiar piece of evidence.

After retiring from tennis, Lars Ulrich’s dad came into public view during Metallica’s painful Some Kind of Monster film. In the movie, this bright and sage voice listens to a preview of what the band had created during their years in the studio. After, he squints his huge black eyes and proclaims: “I would say, ‘delete that.’” And they did! Who with a beard so long could be wrong? Turns out he was just protecting his own turf — check out the druidic Ulrich the Elder here exploring some epic, spacey, meditative sound design while battling a laptop loaded with glitch samples.

If you’re into the classic French heavy metal band Sortilège, chances are you might also enjoy a bottle of the Canadian maple syrup whiskey that shares the name.

Here’s an outtake photo of Eddie Van Halen from Everybody Wants Some. Contact Redferns for your own licensing needs. For the uninitiated, this looks like Detroit, MI, or Rochester, NY, or Niagara Falls — a Buick-ridden hellhole circa November 1979 where shut-in guitar prodigies from Pasadena, CA, have to put on a parka and nurse a deep hangover in a dirty, wet and freezing parking lot. David Lee Roth likes to compare the appeal and reach of Van Halen to McDonald’s hamburgers. It turns out you are what you eat. (Roth himself is chomping the wormburger held lower right.)

Click to enlarge, this photo reduces the quaint black metal concept of “grimness” to shreds. Sorry, Fenriz.

I’m putting together a D-beat episode of my Bloody Roots metal history show for Sirius, and simultaneously we’re approaching the anniversary of the booze and pills overdose death of Disclose frontman/guitarist Kawakami. Here’s what his heavily-branded gravestone looks like. I think the message of the Super Saddam Bros. doll is to enjoy life, enjoy Discharge, embrace some rules and throw others down the nearest green pipe.