Child-Eating Winter Demons #2: Krampus.

Krampus

When painfully jaded beatnik assholes get together and decide that traditional holidays largely aimed at small children aren't á la mode, it's rare that they offer up any kind of decent alternative. Ripping off Seinfeld or evoking a flying spaghetti monster while cloaked all smug in your own farts isn't the ideal way to garner support for your anti-Christmas venture, but seasonal pretension does have its merits; it did, after all, revive the Krampus legend. 

Germanic Alpine folklore has been the subject of revival and parody in recent years with many television shows and movies drawing their water from a well of ridiculous mountain folk tales that glimmer with absurdity and obscurity. One of the old stories to bob back to the surface and wash up on the doorstep of mainstream media is that of St.Nicholas' moral foil, the satanic child-molesting goblin, Krampus.

As legend has it, Krampus is the embodiment of Christmas sadism and retribution. Whereas old St.Nick (The one that looks like a grand dragon from The Klan) brings joy to the strange mountain children by leaving gifts in their Christmas shoe on December 6th, Krampus delivers nothing but cold, frost-bitten justice to the misbehaved by whipping them with chains, batting them with sticks, and even dragging them to the very pits of hell on Krampusnacht (Krampus night). Being naughty in the Alps obviously carried serious consequences, and it's easy to see this tale as a sort of microcosm of Christian redemption being sewed under the skin before that skin can know earthly pleasures.

Krampus is very similar to the Japanese Namahage legend in that he targets children in his annual orgy of violence, and that he appears as a demonic ghoul covered in hair. It's also important to note that both Krampus and Namahage have their own festivals in which young men get wasted, throw on costumes, and scare the living bejesus out of shit-eating children. It really is quite a beautiful thing. However, it could be argued that Krampus is a bit more sadistic than the Namahage in that his punishments are more twisted and varied, as depicted in Krampuskaten (Krampus cards). 

Even though experts would have it that Krampus predates the Christian orbit of the Alps, it's interesting to note the similarities between Krampus and the Christian vision of Satan. Obviously there was serious appropriation from Pagan lore, as is the case with most Christian traditions, but the concept of a demonic goat torturer dishing out punishments to wrongdoers seems to line up very smoothly with New Testament portraiture. 

Hope you all had a happy holiday, friends.

6 Things Someone Is Probably Sick Of Hearing (With the aid of 6 patronizing .gif images)

1. "Do you have the time?"

Do I have the time? Like fur suuuure. Like, really?

2. "Hey, do you know where (insert location) is?"

  

Ehhh, honey, has that line actually worked for you before? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really?

3. *Coughing silently*

Really?

4. "Hey, could I just get an espresso please?"

Oh no, oh no honey, just because I work here doesn't mean you can talk to me like that. Oh no honey, really? Really?

Honey really?

5. "Please! My husband is having a heart attack! Someone call for help! Please!"

Oh wow, really? Oh wow. Really? You chose that line?

6. The endless murmur of the world around us.

Ugh.

Music to Love to (Industrial mixtape)

LISTEN

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Cuz It's Hot

Sheep On Drugs - Motorbike

Spahn Ranch - Succumber

Ministry - Over The Shoulder

Front Line Assembly - Force Fed

Meat Beat Manifestro - Acid Again

1000 Homo DJs - Hey You Asshole!

X-Marks The Pedwalk - Cenotaph

Armageddon Dildos - Dark Obsession

Vomito Negro - Move Your Body

Placebo Effect - Broken Mirrors

Dead When I Found Her - Curtains

Skinny Puppy - Addiction

A Split Second - On Command

The Women of Black Metal (Mixtape)

LISTEN

Tracklist:

Myrkur - Nattens Barn

DodsAngel - Life

Black Palace - From the Depths of Hell

Janza - Islamic Lies

Gallhammer - Speed of Blood

Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult - Necrocosmic Vision

False - The Key of Passive Suffering

Ikim Oulanem - Bilsbilim

Insidius Infernus - Children of the Night

Korgull the Exterminator - Metal Fist Destroyer

Xantotol - Law

Murmurs - Triune of Death

Sigh - The Transfiguration Fear

Witchblood - Invocation

Skuldom - Shadowsphere

Child-Eating Winter Demons #1: Namahage

You hear it every single year. Some young, metropolitan types in semi-formal garbs slurping on mocha lattes and mulling over the pros and cons of Christmas as if, even after thirty consecutive years of it, they've never had this tedious conversation before. One of them straightens up in their chair and says, "ah, sure it's for the chaps, isn't it?" and shakes her head at the Bewley's waitress that's been circling their table like a vulture waiting to seat the next pack of mincing Dubcentric overcoats.

Well to you I say this; fuck the chaps.

What have they ever done for anyone? Besides screaming, roaring, and writhing around in pools of their own wee while you're trying to entertain drunken house guests on Christmas eve. They're little headaches who exist only to bleed your bank account dry, turn into egomaniacal, techno-dependent teenagers, and to dump a snotty grandchild in your lap by the time you're fifty-two.

My main gripe with them is that they're just not very good at things. If I were ever to procreate with someone, I'd have to be assured that the corpulent result of our efforts would at lease be capable of telepathy or possess the ability to commune with the dead. Useful things, abilities that the mother and I could benefit from, none of this colouring book shite. I'm not the only one with this opinion either, human beings have expected the very best from their offspring for centuries and have sought to instill the fear of failure in them for just as long.

While Christmas has its share of benign and generous creatures that want only the best for the children, there are also those of a more rigid and cruel demeanour that stalk in the shadows. For every Yang there is a Yin, and as long as there are little bastard kids that don't do as they're told, there is a Christmas demon that will gobble up the ungovernable tykes, leaving little but a crimson stain on their Peppa Pig bedclothes for their parents to discover in the morning.

So let's celebrate these all-important moral enforcers, these horned foils to Father Christmas, these child-eating transdimensional overseers to which we owe so very much.

The Namahage (生剥)

The Japanese have a long and rich history of scaring the fuck out of each other, most of all they've had a long and rich history of scaring their children into boundless servitude, which has led to the mosaic web of fantastical beasts and night demon myths that make Japanese culture so very interesting and utterly disturbing. And so, we travel to the Akita Prefecture of Northern Japan, to a little fishing city called Oga, for our first look at demonic and festive whip-cracking.

One of the big cultural practices unique to Oga is their New Year's Eve (Western calendar) 'Namahage Festival' in which large groups of young men don ogre-like masks, straw costumes, and run wild around the city brandishing kitchen knives and making sure the children of the city have been respecting their elders and have been doing what they're told.

The legends begins, as many Japanese tales do, with those pesky Chinese. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (87 BC) came to Japan and with him came five ogres (Oni) with a penchant for stealing crops and women from the people of Oga. As rebuttal, the people of Oga challenged these ogres to build a thousand-step staircase from Oga to the five shrine halls before the morning time. If the ogres could complete this task, the people of Oga would supply them with a young woman every year, but failure would result in their instant banishment from the city. The story ends with one of the Oga peasants crying like a rooster to fool the Ogres into believing that time had run out and they'd failed the challenge.

It's a bit of a fucking head-scratcher though because the ogres seem to come back every New Year's Eve to scare the shit out of the children (and apparently female in-laws) into obeying their families. It's that kind of lapse in continuity that would usually put me off a good myth, but I can forgive any tradition that makes bratty kids cry in public.

The Namahage actors dance around the city wielding their giant knives, handing out sticky rice cakes, and baying for the blood of naughty children. It shows a bit of duality in Japanese demonism when an earthbound ogre walks through the streets of your home with the intention of either giving you a cake to ward off disaster, or skin your child alive. If Western kids often burst into tears while sitting on a benevolent fat man's lap, imagine what would happen if we gave him a knife and the agency to frighten some manners into the little shits.

History's Craziest Assholes: Gilles de Rais.

No one likes an overachiever, but it's always a sight for sore eyes when an overachiever is disgraced and publicly executed for their crimes in the most violent manner conceivable. Aye, it's always the ones that don the paladin's shield that turn out to be the very worst of humanity, because true evil always masquerades as shimmering piety. It's a sorry state of affairs when we send young men and women off to seminaries and nunneries, isolate them until those nasty brain chemicals stop ordering them to drink and fuck, and then we expect them to be perfectly sensitive and benign human beings when we nudge our children into their confession boxes. I'm not saying that we necessarily make these people, but you can't stop a fire when it's assumed there'll be no need for detectors. 

Born in 1404 with a mouth full of silver spoon and over 22 castles spread out around Western France, Gilles de Rais was destined for high society. The death of his parents in 1415 left him and his brother in the care of their opportunistic grandfather, Jean de Craon, and it is under his roof that the seeds of bitterness may well have been sewn.

Despite spending much of his young life under the wing of an artful money-grabber, Gilles' early adulthood would see him go on to do many noble things in the eyes of the French military and church. His military career lasted from 1427 to 1435 and enclosed some of the most important moments in French history as he battled alongside the House of Valois and Joan of Arc, the legendary warrior that took orders directly from god (we might get to her at some point).

Having spent a generous portion of a decade fighting valiantly, garnering land and respect, and generally making a name for himself on the tongues of clerics and noblefolk, Gilles de Rais put the sword down in 1435 and retired to his wealth, spending the rest of his days traveling from one castle to another with his wonderful family and goblet full of mulled wine.

Plot twist, actually, he started torturing people to death instead.

You see, you don't spend eight years on a battlefield, slashing, hacking, impaling, and feasting greedily on the blood of your enemies and expect to simply mellow out and nuzzle back into the nest of society. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and Gilles still had weapons, a hideously sick mind, and enough money to do whatever the fuck he wanted. And in stark contrast to his career as a god-fearing knight, what Gilles wanted was demonic ritual and the blood of innocent children.

It was never clarified when Gilles snapped or what exactly caused him to, it may have been any number of themes that ran through his lifetime, but when the last fibers of reason and empathy were fractured, Gilles turned into a monster. However, though his operations went on for years, it wasn't until Gilles crossed the church that investigations were opened up on him. It wasn't until Gilles kidnapped a priest that the full extent of his corruption was unearthed. 

In a confession to the court, Gilles admitted to the kidnap, torture, sodomy and murder of between 80 - 200 children (he couldn't even remember, let that sink in.) between the ages of six and eighteen. He stated rather pathetically that his years of sadistic torture and murder was basically the grim result of the amount of mulled wine he'd been pouring down his neck. The horrific nature of his crimes and the ritualistic manner in which he raped and murdered the children was detailed in his confession, a deranged checklist that included hanging, blood sacrifice, fear-mining, post-dismemberment sexual assault, and furnishing his quarters with the heads of children he liked the most.

In the end, everyone close to him, including those that accompanied him in his orgiastic butchery, testified against Gilles in a court held by both the church and state, and Gilles was sentenced to be hanged and burned only a month after his 35th birthday. In a bizarre move that sounds more like a morbid joke, he was buried in a church cemetery in his home of Nantes.

Stream of consciousness: Shit Head.

My eyes have been fixed on frozen image of Patrick Swayze licking an apple for at least seven days now. Though it’s hard to tell because time holds very little weight in this altered state of consciousness I have so clumsily penetrated. It was somewhere between the moment that Brian said ‘let’s get…’ and the moment Alice tipped a drooping fringe of ash from her cigarette into an empty can of Tuborg, it was in a millisecond between those moments that time seemed to freeze entirely. Brian leaned towards me mid-lurch and Alice’s eyes had begun to roll up into their lids in anticipation of some dumb suggestion. At first I assumed a dose of PCA was at work, but when I eventually caught myself immersed in astute thought, amid complete and total stillness and quiet, I realised that this wasn’t a psychedelic reaction at all. It took me approximately a day, or at least what I thought to be a day, to realise that I was stuck in my own soliloquy.

Now when I say I’ve been thinking, I’ve really been speaking all along. Speaking under a spotlight to an invisible audience completely apathetic to my joys and sorrows. I’ve been speaking into the abyss and the abyss simply doesn’t give a fuck. I’ve been traveling through time and space, sparking up the very first embers of the very first fire under purposeless monoliths alongside early man in all his bronze-skinned, filth-encrusted glory. I’ve poured wine for the emperor Nero and watched him tear the flesh from peasant bone with cruel whips. I’ve heard them name the sun Aine, Horus, Ra, Sol, Apollo, and before that it was identified with grunts and primitive wails. I’ve hung witches with Matthew Hopkins, and I’ve slung porter down my throat with at least two of the men suspected to be Jack the Ripper.

I’ve sunk the Titanic and launched a ship in the name of Helen. I’ve gone prancing through portals and I’ve played flute for the blind, faceless, howling god Nyarlahotep. My body has melted and solidified into the shapes of baying wolves and I’ve hunted shadows under Transylvanian moonlight. I’ve beaten myself into dust with prosthetics for phantom limbs and I’ve made love to sexless planets and stars with all the vigour of a coked-up, sweat polished Prometheus/Aphrodite. I have stood front row at a Coldplay concert and thought ‘what is this poisonous horse shit?’.

I’ve been the cosmic bard for a week, I’ve been the narrator of all things from earthly soil to hideous alien plasm. I’ve done all of this in the space of seven days and all within the confines of my malfunctioning, omnipotent brain. This dirty couch has been the cradle of harmony, structure, and chaos all at the same time, and I have sung their lullabies. Endless, unbroken twilight has shivered and…

…and then Brian said ‘Let’s get…let’s get chipper before the they fucking close, lads’.

Movies: The Monster Squad, Night of the Comet.

The Monster Squad (1987)

Director Fred Dekker arrived late to the party but had managed to furnish the 80s with two of its most memorable horror pictures, House (1986) and Night Of The Creeps (1986). If his love of camp Universal horror seeped through the pores of the latter, then it completely drenched The Monster Squad, a film that serves as a loving kiss on the cheek to the old monsters and creeps of Hollywood. But instead of being merely a mannequin wrapped in the mummy's shroud, The Monster Squad proved itself to be the last movie with the Universal heart to feature these characters, despite being miles from a Universal film. It's the prepubescent monster mash orgy you didn't know you wanted to see.

Count Dracula returns from the grave (because he's Dracula and he's known for this sort of thing.) to wreak his unholy vengeance on mankind by uniting the Hollywood quintuple of Satan (The Mummy, Frankenstein's "Frank" Monster, The Wolfman, Gill-Man.) and taking over the world with the aid of a mystical amulet. However, and as is the case with most films from this period, a group of spoiled American preteen porn-addicts are the only ones coming between him and his last laugh. 

"Wolfman has NARDS!"

I'm usually the first to stand up and call mischief on these films that try to pander to the young American audience by including them in the story line (see The Masters of the Universe.) because I think this model, which was very popular during 1980s, discourages imagination and ultimately kisses up to the Pepsi-breath "Me" generation, but I have to admit that this film would never have worked with a wholly adult cast of heroes. I wasn't a huge fan of Stand By Me or The NeverEnding Story, so I don't share in the nostalgia of the kid hero that most of my friends do, but had Kiefer Sutherland been cast as Sean, the film wouldn't have been as charming as it was. So here's a first from me; the film was fucking charming, and it was charming because the kids were excellent in it. 

Americana horror has always had a fairly large space in my heart, with its suburban bloodbaths, inept heroes, and inevitable towels draped over the shoulders of survivors as they give their statements to the befuddled police. It's all formulaic, but no less beautiful. The element of Americana though, can be a little overbearing in The Monster Squad, and it kind of drifts between being wonderfully dumb and painfully self-referential. It's an all-rounder that's not quite suitable for children and maybe too childish for the adult, but just about right for the braindead horror weirdos like ourselves. It throws everything at you but the kitchen sink, and it makes contact more than it misses. 

Night of the Comet (1984)

Standing closer to the neon glow of 80s chic, Night of the Comet does a hugely different job than The Monster Squad, though it is made up of a sum of the same parts. American consumer culture meets depraved mutant vampires in this glorious 95 minute snapshot of a leg-warming zeitgeist. Thom Eberhardt hasn't since directed anything nearly as good as this, but he is owed at least one feather in his cap for this one. If bright lights, dumb dialogue ("Daddy would have bought us Uzis."), and weapons that never run out of ammunition are your thing, then you'll get your kicks out of this one. I did, but I'm easily amused, you know that.

A highly-anticipated comet has just about wiped humanity from the face of the earth and turned the rest of them into undead maniacs. However, as is the "(see above review)", two American teenage girls are among the last of the human race and are forced to battle the walking dead as well as evade a secret underground government installation full of bloodthirsty, child-eating vampires.

"Let's play scary noise."

The comedy in this film comes from two very distinct places, the intentional dumbness and the unintentional dumbness, the latter coming with the territory of any film from this period. You'll either find hilarity in lines like "You were born with an asshole, Doris, you don't need Chuck!" or you'll snicker at the sight of a girl wearing legwarmers and a headband without a hint of irony. You cannot enjoy both. I'm not entirely sure if the people involved with this project were aware that 80s fetishists would exist one day in the future, but if they did, they most certainly went about securing their film's place on said fetishist's mantle place. The soundtrack to this film is chart gold and in your face throughout, as if those involved decided that their film would be the last bastion of synth-pop. 

It goes without saying at this point that there's a serious budget on this fucker and they made every last penny count because the visuals are stunning for the time. Mash those red-tinted skies, explosions, and ghastly make-up effects with a soundtrack that probably cut into their cocaine budget and you've got a film that celebrates dumb Hollywood indulgence and does so fantastically. Night of the Comet is an essential bit of cheese for your moronic 80s platter.

ThatMakesItNotInsane Christmas Wish List

Dear Father Christmas,

The seasons have burned away with haste and the cycle of unfathomable misery is about to begin anew. No one really knows what illness of the mind causes you to hold us in such loathing and why you force us to endure the torment of existence, but we imagine that you, too, must suffer so greatly that you would project it unto us.

You are not without a morsel of benevolence though, Father Christmas, as once a year you seek to alleviate our almost constant despondency with material gifts of your own design. You might suffocate us for 364 days a year, you might masturbate wildly and administer our torments from your throne of shredded limbs, but for every spiteful finger on your punishing hands, there is a hangnail of kindness.

So, we savour each moment of your annual pity and choose our wishes wisely. The children you've yet to corrupt write their wish lists, make the preparations for your biscuit offering, and totter off to bed where they escape into the quiet medicine of sleep. The rest of us simply wait, hope, and be thankful for the 55th day of Mercymas.

As non-compliance results in immediate extermination, I will now share with you my list, or rather, those punishments of your design that I wish to be freed from.  

1. Keep House music off of college campuses.

They just aren't ready for it yet. Every slight variation on its sound is immediately isolated and repackaged as something new and 'hip'. Do you know how many different kinds of House music there is? 27 according to Wikipedia, and that's without counting the many new genres that are birthed every day from Ket-riddled minds in €250 student apartments. One day, we will all be able to enjoy House music without turning into something akin to early man obsessed with his own erection. But that is not this day, nor is it tomorrow.

2. Redesign Avonmore milk caps.

Though most of your daily tortures are furnished with some kind of dark irony or karma backwash, I see nothing but callous nihilism in your treatment of the Avonmore milk carton. Though you have recently introduced the simple and humanitarian one twist cap on many Avonmore products, that Satanic plastic pull on the inside of the cap remains on select products (namely, the 500ml carton). You simply do not know what heartache it causes when the flimsy plastic pull breaks from the lid of the carton, leaving you with no other option but to take a knife to it in order to access its succulent moo juice.

3. Make Tears For Fears fight The Cult.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is literally the worst song to come from a time when songs bore a majesty not seen since. Conversely, "Fire Woman" is one of the best songs to come from this period. As with most things you do, the weighing scales often tip in the favour of suffering, and so it is with doubtless enthusiasm that you will grant me my wish to see Tears For Fears locked inside a steel cage with The Cult. I want to be able to paint a harrowing triptych of TFT's agony.

4. Teach me how to tie knots well.

I've always dreamed of becoming a sailor, bound to the sea with assorted knots and a fancy hat, but in your cruel and never ending joke, you have made it so I can hardly tie my shoelaces, let alone a bowline. Please undo this bitter cosmic happenstance. Wait a moment, sailors do tie people up and do sexy stuff to them, don't they? Or am I thinking of bondage enthusiasts? I think it's the last one. That's what I want. I want to be really good at that. For reasons.

5. A puppy mascot for my drug lab.

Morale has been quite low in the lab recently following the death of poor Lucia when we attempted to extract tryptamine from her. I know in my heart of hearts that the only way to cheer up the remaining four Portuguese slaving away in  the lab is to provide them with a furry friend that they will doubtlessly try to extract typtamine from, kill in the process, and mourn for at least a week.

6. A night of restful sleep for American police.

It must be really hard publicly executing black people for even the slightest disturbance, or even without reason at all, so I would like to use my final wish to provide the hugely corrupt and bloodwashed American justice system with a nice pillow to lay their weary heads upon after a long, hard day of snarling fascism.

Merry Christmas.

Channel Surfing

The Stanic Rites of Vampire Horse

Creeping on hands and knees, the good doctor brushed through nettles with the sleeve of his jacket pulled up over his knuckles, as his other hand clutched a crucifix close to his beating chest. His mistake was allowing night’s inky curtain to draw before reaching his intended destination, and as he crawled anxiously through the barbs and vines around him, he knew that his only hope was to abandon his grizzly crusade for another time. The sun does not easily find its way through the hills and woods of Transylvania, this he knew well, though of all the nights he could have chosen to exorcise the demonic scourge of the land, this one appeared to be darker than usual, and its darkness fell with a haste that his carriage could not match. Fiends, such as the ones he hunted, were residents of the night, and to approach them in their nocturnal habitat would be to stride foolishly towards certain doom. Were he mere minutes earlier, he may have won a fighting chance, but all was lost, for tonight.

Though miles he was from the closest town, and without a carriage to return him to his lodgings, Doctor Lindeman couldn’t help but find a narrow humour in his current predicament. Indeed, humour is important to the doctor, for one cannot lay eyes upon the corpses of women and children without the ability to later escape into a smile or a laugh. And so it was that the good doctor allowed himself a chuckle, if only to escape momentarily from the horrors surrounding him. This, of course, was Doctor Lindeman’s final mistake. A vehement snort came from somewhere behind him, followed by the clip and clop of demonic hooves. And before the doctor could hold aloft his cross in defence, the shadow-born mare rose above him, a dark colossus, eyes as red as the tongues of fire, and it found his throat before a gasp could it muster.

***

Detective Deadbody

Detective Deadbody was a strange one and that’s why his role within a case always hung by a thread, the head office could never understand a man from a working class background, a man with real dirt between his fingernails. His bizarre mannerisms disturbed those around him, and perhaps that’s why he never quite gelled with his peers.  However much he perplexed and provoked them, whether intentionally or otherwise, he always managed to close the case. He was scorned from a stone’s throw but respected from a distance. That’s why the man always had a home at Scotland Yard, and it was that same reason that brought Mr. Mayne to his desk that drizzly evening.

Mr. Mayne sat before the detective, puffed from his corncob pipe, and listened intently to what he had to say. To his credit, Mr. Mayne, a wealthy lawyer residing in a stately manor in Datchet overlooking the Thames, was not at all put off by the detective’s peculiarity. Detective Deadbody was leaned back in his seat, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, and though this lack of eye-contact may have made the lawyer feel somewhat uncomfortable, he knew that this was all a part of the man’s mode of thought. He’d heard much about him, and he knew that the detective would steer him right.

A fly landed on the detective’s cheek and wandered about his hanging jaw before alighting onto the pile of papers that stood as a tower upon Deadbody’s desk. ‘The detective is an incredibly busy fellow’, thought the lawyer, and all the while he sat and puffed, his eyes narrowing and widening with every sentence Deadbody uttered. Each suggestion Deadbody put forward was a shock to the lawyer’s system, he’d clearly reviewed Mayne’s case with the uttermost attentiveness and with that wild genius that he’d become so very well known for.  Then the detective said something that shook Mr. Mayne to his core.

The pipe rattled in Mayne’s hand and his lip quivered.

“It’ simply can’t be” he stammered, though he knew that everything the detective had told him added up, as though he had, in those few minutes, pieced together the jigsaw puzzle. The lawyer pulled back his chair and breathed heavily.

“It was I all along, I’m responsible for the killings” he said, shakily pinching the handle of a knife from his jacket pocket, “by Jove, Deadbody, you’ve done it again”.

Thoughts bounced and reverberated inside of the wealthy lawyer’s head, he shook with them, each revelation coming down upon him like a lightning bolt. All the while, Detective Deadbody remained deathly silent, calm as morning. Mr. Mayne shot up from his seat and looked upon the detective as a lost sailor might the glow of a lighthouse.

“We simply must stop me before I kill again!” he barked, knocking over his chair and slamming the door behind him as he left the detective to revel in triumph once more.

Now That's What I Call Wasted (Mix Tape)

LISTEN

Tracklist

I. It begins

Abigail - War 666

Vomitor - Midnight Madness

Darkthrone - Those Treasures Will Never Befall You

II. The Shreddening

Speedealer - Schlitterbahn

Zeke - Evil Dead

Dwarves - Drug Store

Gang Green - Alcohol

Hookers - Baby, You'll Regret Me

Barbatos - Satanik Beer

III. Punching The Air

Znöwhite - War Machine

Tankard - Schwarz Weiß Wie Schnee

Bulldozer - Whiskey Time

Motörhead - I'll Be Your Sister

Exciter - Heavy Metal Maniac

Overkill - Rotten To The Core

Slayer - In A Gadda Da Vida

Sacrilege - At Death's Door

Kreator - Phobia

IV. I Forgot The Lyrics

Ozzy Osbourne - Bark At The Moon

Abigail - War 66 (Played again because you forgot the first time.)

AC/DC - Hight Voltage

Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Coming

V. Drunk Dialing

REO Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You

Meatloaf - Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

ABOUT

The following mix tape is based on a sonic atmosphere theory that I've been developing since opening my first can at 15 years old. Be it the humble house party or giant, shimmering music festival, the mood, music, and alcohol consumption frequency of an event all play a huge and communal role in giving character to the occasion. However, it isn't enough to simply throw on the crowd pleasers and headbangers in order to sway the drunken hordes, because there is a symmetry to the shittery that no one talks about. Just as there are tiers of drunken perception, so too is there a system of mandatory sounds to accompany each tier. I call this (in honour of The Cure and the many drunken tears that have been shed to their music over the last 30 + years) Disintegration theory.

The 'disintegration' in disintegration theory refers to the gradual softening or lessening of sonic density in a playlist. Just as our sensory perception disintegrates with the alcohol we consume, so should the music we listen to, in order to accommodate our poo brains. Rarely has the drunken polarity between aggression and sentimentality been expressed in a playlist the way it has been in NTWICW, and that is exactly what was taken into consideration when meticulously Frankensteining this mix tape together. Allow me to further illustrate the system at hand:

I. It Begins

The onset. The first cans cracked. Excitement tinged with aggression must be exemplified in these first tracks. The merciless attack of thrashing Black Metal is absolutely paramount here.

II. The Shreddening

Excitement building, blood rushing to everywhere but the brain. Depending on your poison, the drink may be taking hold even at this early stage. Dirty Hardcore Punk and Thrash is necessary in order to rouse the subjects. This is where the slight change in tone begins as well.

III. Punching The Air

The drink begins to take hold, senses depleting slightly, the only sane thing for this atmosphere is a change in excited Hardcore Punk to the somewhat campier Thrash that naturally occurs in the drunken cycle. Tempo has slowed slightly, allowing for a more relaxed kind of debauchery. Fists punch the air, heads bang knowingly, these are perhaps the last few moments of prudence you will know tonight.

IV. I Forgot The Lyrics

The classics, the crowd pleasers, the tracks you'd never normally listen to on a sober night, but have now become absolute staples of your wasted experience. You will notice that a track has been repeated here, in the case of this mix tape, Abigail's "War 666", this is intentional, a simulation of intoxicated repetition. The track you forgot had already been played long ago. This is the time to sing those recognizable tunes and take those unavoidable steps toward oblivion.

V. Drunk Dialing

A massive change in tone that you were doubtlessly unaware of. This is the stage where the drink has reduced you from excited aggressor to sentimental baby child. You will probably remember your ex-partner at this point, maybe you'll feel like telling you best friend how much you love them. Either way, this is where the music must take on something of a romantic and calming shape. This is when you'd best keep your phone switched off. 

Shameless Heavy Metal Album Covers

Hyperbole is one of the most important pillars supporting heavy metal. While other musicians might ask, 'is this too much?', the metal head will cry 'MORE! I NEED MORE!'. There is no room for ethics in the slaughter house.

The metal head is ultimately gluttonous and unashamed, drawing sword-wielding cocks on horseback, impaling its enemies on a battlefield deranged with shredded corpses. Heavy metal was created as an antidote to moderation, and it has served this purpose for forty long years. Heavy metal demands only two things: the cocaine and the stage. Everything else is filler.

Such senseless debauchery has been known to seep into all that lives outside the heavy metal membrane, however, and evidence of its absurdity is clearly seen in the artwork that it uses to market itself. Heavy metal knows no shame. If it even knew what "so bad it's good" implied, it would probably try to repeat the words with its own slobbering mouth, fail over and over again, then break a window in frustration and continue on its drunken tirade. 

Artwork has always been of particular importance to the heavy metal band, and because most heavy metal bands are unhinged dope fiends, the artwork they employ is often crude, loopy, and ridiculous beyond all reason. If you aren't entirely convinced, let's have a looksie.

Attacker - Battle At Helms Deep (1985)

The musclebound hero of this image looks as though he's just realized what a huge mistake it was to enter the lair of the goblin wizard. He wasn't expecting security to come in the form of a giant green spider dragon. He's got a look on his face as if to say "What have I done?".

 Betrayer F.T.M. - No Life TIll Fury (2010)

This would actually be considered really, really tame by death metal standards. I just love the fact that the band must have asked to be included in the artwork, eating steak and popcorn while the surgeon is strangled to death by an octobaby.

 Skull Fist - Heavier Than Metal (2010)

This would be a fantastic idea for an Adult Swim cartoon.

 Em Ruinas - ...from the Spped Metal Graves (2010)

I really hope this isn't supposed to be brooding and sullen. Due to the awful shading and contrast, it just looks like a flying torso grabbing a ball of lightning. 

 Annihilator - Refresh the Demon (1996)

Chris Farley as Satan.

 Grave Digger - Tunes Of War (1996)

I've seen covers with skeletons playing flutes, guitars, keyboards, drums, but I've never seen on playing the bagpipes. Was the kilt really necessary as well?

 Helloween - The Best, The Rest, The Rare (1991)

Helloween once again taking the pumpkin thing way too far...

 Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape (1991)

...and when they aren't, they're pulling shit like this. I have no idea what's supposed to be happening here, but I can't help but imagine some greasy teenager handing this record over the till and instantly stuttering up an explanation as to why it's not weird porn.

 Cobra - Grito en el Abismo (2010)

This works on paper. The concept is tried and tested, but everything about it screams straight-to-DVD 00's action flick. 

 Living Death - Metal Revolution (1985)

Walrus demon.

 Sofisticator - Camping The Vein (2012)

So, the boys from Sofisticator (Jesus Christ) are drinking "killer beer", eating a midget, fending off the living dead, and taking a moment to shred. Right on.

 Cranium - Speed Metal Slaughter (1998)

This is a horrible way to attract women. It looks like Cranium and their chainsaw-wielding zombie cohort have invaded a disco and taken population control into their own hands.

Sabbat - Geionslaught 1986 (2006)

Sabbat are not known clothes wearers. Also, check out the guy at the bottom right corner. He knows.

Dr. Mastermind - Sin Sandwich (2005)

She appears to be rubbing lettuce, maybe celery, on her lady parts. She's also engulfed in flames. I don't know what she's getting out of this, but it looks like it's her thing.

Tokyo Blade - Mr. Ice (1998)

It's just fucking horrible. Fuck you, Tokyo Blade, for making me look at this.

Grim Reaper - Fear No Evil (1985)

The Grim Reaper has destroyed yet another priceless Picasso work with his motorcycle. What a cunt.

Rick James - Throwin' Down (1982)

This isn't even a metal record, but Rick James gets it.

Anvil - Plenty Of Power (2001)

I could have picked any Anvil cover art here, but this one is just particularly disturbing. The colours are actually offensive to the eyes.

Metalucifer - Heavy Metal Chainsaw (2001)

Probably my favourite of the lot. There's absolutely no need for it at all. He's definitely been drinking as well.

Agent Steel - Order Of The Illuminati (2003)

Martians getting in some practice before the charity run. I don't know who gave the green light to this cover, but I imagine they were really into the idea of it. The artist must have some kind of explanation for this. 

Witch Cross - Fit For Fight (1984)

Nudity: check. Steel: check. Demonic bat monster: check. 'Witch' in the band name: check. Heavy metal standard.

Unicorn - The Legend Returns (1987)

You called your band Unicorn and you put a unicorn on your cover art. You fucking pansies. 

Mass - Swiss Connection (1981)

A giant and probably autonomous guitar cracks through the side of a mountain and you just sort of stand there with your mouth agape. I'd fucking run. If guitars are anything like guitarists, it'll want to talk about itself.

Virgin Steele - Noble Savage (1985)

Let's get the skinniest guy ever to be our barbarian.

Bitches Sin - Invader (1986)

I don't know what's worse, the fact that they crossed Edvard Munch with aliens, or the fact that said 'invader' is actually being chased by Victorian weasel men.

Attila - Rolling Thunder (1986)

This is here for the same reason the last Anvil one is and then some. What is going on? Why is the rocket there? Why is so much happening at once? How do you get into this much trouble?

Piledriver - Metal Inquisition (1984)

He's using his guitar as a jack hammer to drill a hole in a man's head. Piledriver.

The Exalted Piledriver - Metal Manifesto (2008)

With a slight name change and new music over 20 years later, The Exalted Piledriver returned to reclaim their place at the top of album artwork kitsch. 

Dogs With Jobs - Shock (1990)

I actually really like this one.

Racer X - Superheroes (2000)

I really don't like this one. Then again, how much can you expect of a band that thought "Hey, let's name our band after a character from an ancient Japanese anime show".

****

The Best Kinds Of Baby To Adopt And How To Eat Them.

Life is an underhanded bitch. So much so that it keeps certain harsh realities obscured, only to reveal them to you as you stand trembling at the end of its diving board. One of these grim and sobering facts of existence is that your future partner may want you to use your sexual apparatus for procreation, as opposed to merely slapping it about wildly in a room of tin foil to the forensic pathology grooves of Kraftwerk. Indeed, according to certain "experts", I've learned that I may one day have to create a crude copy of myself and entertain the idea of a family for long enough so that I don't have to be buried in a pauper's grave.

I've always enjoyed my own company, but then again I was lucky to have turned out to be the fun guy I am now. However, the idea of drinking cans of Hackenberg and dancing to New Order alone in my room at the age of 30 is pretty bleak, so I know that one day I will have to try to keep someone entertained for longer than a week or two. Though this may all sound like I'm making a huge compromise for the sake of romance, I've learned of alternative remedies to my situation that might prove beneficial to all parties. Instead of using my dude to create a clone to which I can pass all of my addictive and destructive traits to, I will instead buy a baby with the money I make from embezzlement.

Buying a baby makes far more sense than making one. Firstly, you don't have to change the shitty nappies of your own tiny, screaming pastiche. Secondly, when you eventually find yourself cooking it at 250 F degrees, you won't feel guilty knowing that it's been in two different ovens in the same house.

So, without further ado, here's some babies that would make great food for you and your lover right before you get back to fucking constantly like normal people.

1. Hairy Babies.

Hairy babies go wonderfully with French toast and a Mimosa. Light but energetic, sweet but bold. The kind of thing you'd serve at a swinger's brunch. They came out with a mane, don't let them go back in vain.

2. Giant Fake Babies.

Giant fake babies are hard to come by, but you know that if you do, you have to snap them up before they're gone. Fantastic for special occasions when the table is full. Best served with a real baby.

3. Babies Dressed As Animal Babies.

Cute as a button, but not so much that you won't stick a fork in them. Served best with red cabbage, tiger prawns, and a tall glass of Raging Bitch.

4. Babies That Won't Stay Still.

Lively little things with a considerable amount of muscle tissue to consider when choosing a cooking format. This is one for the frying pan alright. It doesn't matter whether you like it bloody or well-done, this is one that needs all the garlic and parsley in the world. Chili if you're having adventurous guests. 

5.  Old Babies.

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