Exploring the Bizarre World of Gore-Hop

GOOD CALL, MATE!

I have never owned an over-sized hoodie covered in cannabis leaf designs, and as such; I have never been a fan of any of the many hip-hop or "EDM" fads that have come and gone seamlessly over the past decade or more. I was only just recently introduced to a genre of electronic known as "Witch House", where the more ambient and experimental of electronic soundscapes are merged with occult themes, imagery and performance. I threw my eyes over a Wiki page for Witch House and it provided me with enough entry-level knowledge of the music so that I might feel confident were I to find myself shitting from my own mouth amid a gaggle of hipsters in the packed smoking area of a nightclub I probably shouldn't be allowed in. Sorted, Witch House, I got you. Except then I found the "House" drop box at the bottom of the page, and any hope I had of impressing girls in large beanie hats with my knowledge of ridiculously beep-specific electronic garbage fizzled away like Sunday morning Sopladeine in a glass of tap water. 

There are just too many sub-wub-wub-dub-genres out there, I can't keep up. Even Vice/Noisey/Pitchfork can't keep me in the endless loop. The only way I could ever wish to gain entry into the golden warehouse of the electronic elite would be by spending the rest of my life shuffling between London's guerilla nightclubs, trendy hairdressers, and all the while dealing ket to school children.

It's a good thing I don't particularly give too much of a fuck what my age group are listening to. I do, however, like to explore all the wackiest and most gimmicky fads that EDM and, to a lesser degree, Hip-Hop have to offer in this, the age of the Internet. An age where in order to be heard, you must stand out, and in order to stand out, you must be prepared to plunge into a whirlpool of teeth-grinding madness. Or at least look as though you have. 

Enter Gore-Hop, the inevitable offspring of murder rap, backyard wrestling and the needlessly macho poodle men that tried to hijack brutal death metal back when it was 'cool'. But it's far too easy to slip Gore-Hop into the recycle folder and it's even easier to point and laugh at some of the genre's more flamboyant and shamelessly white artists, and that's the thing about TMINI, we don't do things the easy way. In fact, on paper, Gore-Hop is what we're all about here, it employs all the same imagery as Death Metal, so lets open up our minds so that we may open up our intestines. 

Butchers Haerm - Everlasting Anal Fist Fuck

From a glance, it's fair to say that Gore-Hop owes much of itself to early 90's 'Horrorcore' or Murder Rap artists like Gravediggaz and The Insane Clown Posse, maybe even some of the more established acts of the time like NWA, artists that didn't shy away from brutal lyrics about gunning down their fellow man or raping anything with a pulse (or without, all down to preference). However, while their cues definitely come from the early lyricism and theatrics of the Murder Rappers of the 90's, some of these Gore-Hop artists take it to a whole new, stomach-churning, finger-licking level.

At the very centre of Gore-Hop, again, from a glance, is the seminal outfit Butchers Harem, an Australian group whose members consist of a number of artists, such as Cumblood, Anal Executioner, Mc Bushpig, and McSlurry. While those Murder Rap artists that came before them were somewhat more timid with regards to the ol' gut-slicing, the members of Butchers Harem, mixing rap with the spirit of Goregrind, are far more liberal with their feces and blood spatter. Originally formed under the name Suicidal Rap Orgy in 2001 and led by Mc Bushpig, Butchers Harem are known for plunging head-first into themes made famous by the Goregrind bands that came before them, with songs about fist-fucking, snuff porn, anal rape, and all set to the traditional Hip-Hop studio beats that the local "get rich or die trying" kid is programming on FL Studio. However, Butchers Harem don't seem so intent on the getting rich part as the dying part. Or rather the killing part.

Chuckklez - Keep The Head And Eat The Rest

It's impossible to talk about Gore-Hop without placing it side by side with its originators and innovators, those pesky Juggalos. There's no doubt in my mind that today's Gore-Hop artists are the product of The Insane Clown Posse and their devout following of face-painted Juggalos and Juggalettes. For some reason, the Jaggalo doesn't have a good name for himself, indeed, he is shunned by many and hated by more. Maybe it's the face-paint, maybe it's the incessant "Whoop! Whoop!"-ing, or maybe it's because the American media have picked the very worst of them from Facebook profiles and tagged them as brain dead redneck gangsters with meth-mouth. Either way, Jaggalos, and The Insane Clown Posse, have been given a hard time by the media, and as a result of this, the rest of the world as well. I've never spoken to or seen a Juggalo up close in my entire life, so I'm not going to start beating off into the same sock that everyone else on the Internet seems to be. I don't understand it, I may never understand it, but that's okay, I'm not a part of it.

The Gathering of The Jaggalos, an annual festival set up by Psychopathic Records, is currently taking place in Thornville, Ohio, and many Gore-Hop artists are taking to the stage alongside established names like Cannibal Corpse and Cypress Hill. Judging by the festival's website, the event looks completely horse shit insane, with death match wrestling and an eclectic line-up of Hip-Hop and Metal prancing hand in hand through a field of clown-faced cartoon characters full to the neck with psychedelic drugs and cheap booze. I'd be a liar if I said it didn't look like class A craic, so I won't.

Owning the GOTJ Pendulum stage are notable Gore-Hoppers like Insane Poetry, Scum, Hex Rated and Dieabolik The Monster. Whether this is their first time on the GOTJ line-up, I'm none the wiser, but if there was ever a venue for this fledgling off-shoot of Hip-Hop and Goregrind, it's the GOTJ, and god speed to them, I say.

As previously stated, it's the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at these guys, just as it's the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at any of my favourite Death Metal bands. We're living in a world where theatrics, over-the-top lyrics, and a general sense of danger have been shunned once again by the music industry in favour of neat haircuts, acoustic guitars and the ever flavourless 'cool' factor, whatever that may be at whatever time. 

Gore-Hop isn't for everyone, it isn't even for me, but it's good to know that there are still artists out there who are as colourful and demented as the likes of Butchers Harem and Hex Rated. It may come in a different package than most of us are used to, but it's oddball weird and it's unapologetic in its tastelessness, and that's good enough for me. 

A Brief Guide to RTÉ One Programming

For those of you that do not have access to or have never tuned in to RTÉ One, whether due to television license disputes, hardcore prison time, impaired visual and hearing ability, are under the age of fifty-five, or are currently residing inside a kinetic force field, I'd like to give you a quick run down on the kind of disturbing, sexually aggressive, pornographic content that the channel presents on a daily basis. 

Of course, I'm being facetious here, as usual. RTÉ One is basically a caricature of Irish culture. Whereas RTÉ Two allows us to escape into some kind of Westernized fantasy, RTÉ One holds up a fun house mirror in front of its audience and lets the paranoia set in. Do we really look like that? Are we really that pathetic? Are we really that needlessly jovial? Is this Ireland? 

My answers is; you shouldn't give a fuck about any of those things. Possessive culture is a safety blanket for boring people, and that's just what RTÉ One is...boring. Boring as a live stream of a lamb in a slow cooker, which actually sounds like something RTÉ One would air. Now I know, naturally, that tastes vary from person to person, but would it kill the RTÉ execs to throw on Bumfights or Sexcetera between their usual programming of traditional Irish cooking shows or the live stream of Sunday mass? That's the future I want for my children, but in the meantime, here's what you can expect from the channel as is;

The Angelus

Synopsis

Pious children of God stare mournfully towards the sky as a church bell tolls and reminds them of the fragility of life, the way in which they should lead their lives, and the dangers of speaking to or befriending sewer-dwelling protestant vampires.

Primetime

Synopsis

Old people discuss current events and the winner of the show is the contestant that has collected the most feces on their bib. Subjects often include; violence in the streets that rarely occur, teenagers and ten reasons why they should all be sent to prison, political events that no one really understands, pessimistic babble, what the average Joe should and shouldn't be allowed to do, and compulsive liars trying to plug their political parties. 

Nationwide

Synopsis

Journalists travel all around Ireland collecting stories of interest, usually regarding the "Feel good" or the "Uh-oh, recession". On one hand you've got a baby calf being born on a small farm in Kerry and on the other you've got Anto, the smack-addicted hurling enthusiast who hates Joan Burton, but isn't really quite sure why. I'm not sure why any of us hate Joan Burton. There's just something there.

The Big Big Movie

Synopsis

Movies about stupid fucking talking animals and wise-cracking teenagers with magical powers for the 3-12 year old audience, because if they don't get their weekly Big Big Movie; they'll grow up to become the anti-social, alcoholic scumbags featured on Primetime. Be wary, if your kid doesn't have its Pixar movie after Sunday mass, they'll turn into hopeless addicts, snorting krokodil off of ouija boards and holding ritualistic vomit parties.

Fair City

Synopsis

The worst actors and writers in the world assemble together to put on about 23 minutes worth of shite based in a Dublin where all teenagers are annoying criminals, everyone seems to be either fucking each other or not fucking at all, and betrayal lurks in every corner. It sounds like every other soap opera on television really, except at least there's violence in Hollyoaks.

Channel Surfing #1

Micro stories for micro attention spans.

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 perform his exorcism, 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.

****

Tourist Bot VS Reptile Man

Rubble and fire rained upon the scorched earth that was once the city of Amsterdam and the narrow streets, which had so hummed with life, now convulsed with screams and the wailing of sirens. The colours of the city had been almost completely drained and so the lights which once painted amber stripes upon the quiet Amstel now flickered faintly, only barely enough to sometimes illuminate the bobbing, floating dead that littered her waters.

Above the flames and ruin strode a cyclopean terror, a 300-foot tall amorphous beast, somewhat reptile and too man-like for those who saw it to fathom. Where it rose from, no one knew, and what path of destruction it had left in its journey, none would dare envision. All the people of Amsterdam knew was that their danger was both outlandish and immense, and that the city was no longer their own. Abandonment was their only hope so it seemed, and the crowds were frantic in their desertion, leaving homes and vehicles, in some cases family and friends, behind them.

Indeed, the city appeared to be lost, until the roaring, the screaming, and the wailing, was accompanied by a new sound. The city’s sky exploded with the thunderous hum of something akin to the drone of an airplane’s engine, and though few turned in their frenzy to see what was making the sound, a young girl stopped in her tracks, awestruck, she pointed to the sky and yelled at the top of her lungs; “Tourist Bot! He’s here to save us!”

Tourist Bot, a pearly war-machine whose sized equalled that of the reptile man’s, began to descend from the sky, landing just close enough to garner the beast’s attention. At first, the scale-clad gargantuan looked upon Tourist Bot with its fissure eyes as though in shock, but it quickly took to raising its hideous claw to the sky in an attempted barrage. But before the beast could lay a dent upon the magnificent Tourist Bot’s shining EU-emblazoned chest plate, it had already been shot to the ground by the great protector’s hand-missiles, and its fall to death was near deafening and a great grey smoke rose from its grave.

The streets of Amsterdam, now a monument to wreckage, erupted with cheers and praise. With the aid of Tourist Bot, the city was once again their own.

                                                    ****

Detective Deadbody

Detective Deadbody was idiosyncratic 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 far 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 utmost 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 mind, 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 alone in triumph once again.

                                                    ****

The Parapet of Rant: Video Game Armour.

The opinions expressed in The Parapet of Rant are entirely of the author herself (One Nora Hanney). I happen to love scantily clad virtual underage ninja girls. I also drink too much.

You know what are great? Video games. You know what's not so great? Blatant sexism. Unfortunately for some reason those two things have a tendency to go hand in hand. And while I could probably write a much longer article on things like the ratio between female leads and male leads (I don't have an exact number, but hyperbole would have me believe it's about a bazillion to one in favour of male characters) or the continuous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope (What would Princess Peach ever do without Mario following her to all those castles? Maybe she was actually sick of his shit and trying to get away from the stalking bastard) I have instead decided to focus on one particular thing that seems prevalent in video games, which I will be calling: Bare All But The Breast Plate.

I like to play video games, I like boobs and I like to play as a female character when I have the option. However, I don't like being reminded that a lot of the time women are there to be big, jiggly, bouncing double balls of sex appeal, because the horny male teenager demographic is still being played to even though gamers cover a much wider range than 16 year old Timmy, sitting in his room playing World of Warcraft and wanking over Night Elves.

It's gotten to a stage where a woman could be wearing bottlecaps on her nipples and a piece of tinfoil on her clit and be declared battle ready. There's a need to show these women as fighters that really just want a good sexin'. That once you got their armour off (Don't worry, that won't take long) they'd happily let you take them from whatever position, coz it's not like they have more important things to be dealing with, like fighting whatever war they were wearing armour for in the first place.

When I was younger we owned a copy of Spellforce: The Order of Dawn. This is the cover.

Sexy lady, fights evil while looking sexy. It's like they drew her, her armoured panties and her generous side-boob revealing upper armour and then thought "Oh, let's give her some modesty. On second thought, let's just throw a translucent piece of fabric at her arse and hope it sticks."

A couple of months ago I started playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines again. Here's what my Malkavian character started out wearing:

If we needed anymore proof of the ridiculous way female characters are stereotyped, an option of that character's background is "Ex-Gymnast Stripper". Seriously?! Seriously. Ex-Gymnast Stripper.

Moving past that piece of bullshit, I played the game and enjoyed myself wandering around, killing vampires and demons, feeding on people and just in general running amok as a creature of the night. And then I needed to upgrade my armour so I went to the nearest tradesman and bought something that was simply called Heavy Armour and I equipped it. This is what my character changed into:

Assless Chaps. I spent my cash on heavy armour, and I was given assless chaps.

If anyone wore any of this shit into an actual fight, with actual weapons, that armour would be about as effective as a bra made of play-dough and cheese wire.

Let me demonstrate with the help of my good friend, MS Paint:

All it takes is a few arrows (yes, those are arrows. Don't judge, I'm making a point not trying to win an award for photoshop) and our lovely ladies are done for. Arrows, swords, or just some well aimed punches is all it's going to take to do serious damage to those characters even though they're supposedly dressed to do battle. It's even become some games selling points, as these posters for Soul Caliber V show.

Their advertisement basically consists of : Play this game. Why? LADY'S BITS! YEEEEA!

And if you don't see the hypersexualisation of female character's as an issue then just look at this.

That's Tifa Lockhart in Final Fantasy Crisis Core in her normal attire. Like that? Think it's sexy? Want more of that in your video games? She's 15.

"Seven Angels..."; 3 Drone Artists for Suspended Animation.

Dylan Carlson (Earth), the master upon his throne

Back when I was sixteen/seventeen years old (memory fails me) and still had the money to buy records on a regular basis, and indeed, afford the bus to Dublin city where I could purchase such records, I made sure that whatever CD I snatched up from its rack in Tower Records was going to be something familiar to my ears. Usually I'd have already heard snippets of a band's music at a friend's house, read something about them in a magazine, or wet my lips on a gateway track on some free compilation CD. I always knew exactly what I was looking for whenever I walked into Tower Records or any of those too-cool-4-school metal record shops, there was always a song in my head when I went searching through those racks. Except for one occasion, of course, the day the word "Drone" was entered into my vocabulary.

It was a copy of Sunn O))) & Boris' masterpiece, Altar, that caught my eye. Maybe it was one of those gimmicky articles in an issue of Terrorizer, Hammer, or even Kerrang!, but the name Sunn O))) was familiar to me. Their music, however, was not, but there was something about the look of that record that made me part ways with my few bob that day. I was already sick to death of black metal, I had just been introduced to The Melvins and EyeHateGod, my taste buds were changing and I was looking for a new strain of "heavy", the kind of weight of sound that my Darkthrone and Carpathian Forest albums just weren't providing me with anymore. So when that first, world-eating note of "Etna" filled my headphones and rattled my skull, I felt as though the dragon was the one chasing me. I'd never heard anything like it, and this was at half volume.

That's the power of Drone, in any form it may take, Drone lingers and allows you to soak it up. Failing that, it'll soak you up. You don't listen to it for a riff, you don't sit your friend down in front of it and chirp "Oh wait, wait for this part", you don't request a particular song at a Drone concert and chances are you don't even have a favourite Drone. That's because half of what happens in a Drone song is of your creation, it's your imagination, you are as much a part of the music as those that recorded it. Interpretation and imagination are key and this is a music that can be experienced in so vastly different ways that it's hard to pin down what exactly is happening when you listen to it. Your mind is as important an instrument as the amplifier.

Black Boned Angel

Though they called it a day last year, Black Boned Angel created some of the most harsh and haunting audio landscapes spanning 13 releases over a ten year period. The New Zealand duo (later trio) was a supergroup born of infamous experimental and noise musicians, Campbell Kneale and James Kirk. Their grit-teeth, sluggish brutality has rivaled names like Sunn O))) and Khanate. However deceased, this is a group one should still approach, but do so with caution.

Bong

Perhaps my favourite of the three, Newcastle's Bong are psych and doom merchants, through and through. They've authored just about every kind of hypnotic vibration you can imagine, and each release has the ability to transport you to wherever your mind's eye cannot. This is ritual music.

Predator Vision

You could describe the music of Predator Vision with so many different adjectives; Low-fi, Psychedelic, Noise, Kraut...and they're all of those things wrapped up in one, but the spirit of Drone haunts this one. I myself know very little about Predator Vision, who they are or where they come from, all I have are a few recordings, a few snippets of recordings, and an inkling that they won't be putting out three minute long crowd pleasers any time soon, if they even still exist. Cue eerie theremin music.

Movie Ideas #4: Bear Cop: NYPD.

Movies; I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle, Double Trouble

I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle (1990)

Perhaps it's the Stella Artois, but I rarely ever use the word "delightful" to describe anything. It is certainly not my favourite adjective, and one that I avoid at all costs. However, it is the only word suitable enough to describe I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle. This movie was nothing short of delightful, and by that I mean; it ticked all of the relevant boxes one might prescribe a horror film, and indeed, a comedy film as well. When I decided to give it a spin, I had expected nothing more than a cheap as chips bloodsucker riding the coattails of a Hammer productions that had long ago waltzed into the grave. Thankfully, I was very, very wrong. I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is the very definition of a hidden gem, a movie so hilarious and needlessly violent that it's almost a travesty that its name isn't mentioned alongside Peter Jackson's Dead Alive or more recently the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Dead Snow.

The story follows our hero (?), Noddy, and company, as they are terrorized by a motorcycle they bought to fix up and sell on. Unfortunately for the gang, and fortunately for us, the motorcycle they picked up just so happens to be corrupted by the spirit of a demonic entity summoned up by a vengeful occultist, who was murdered in cold-blood by a motorcycle gang during his final ritual. So to say that Noddy and the gang picked the wrong fucking machine to tamper with is an understatement, and to come across the only motorcycle in Birmingham stricken with vampirism is both unfortunate and acutely hilarious.

I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle may have been a once-off for writer Mycal Miller (though co-writer John Wolskel is a legend from the gore-soaked late 80s anime scene) and director Dirk Campbell may have gone on to write Winnie The Pooh stories, but this film alone is a large enough feather to stick in their caps, from a comedy horror perspective. It isn't exactly Stitches (2012), but I will say without a doubt that I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is most certainly worthy of your eyes if you're a fan of blood-spattered comedy. It has all the wit of Only Fools And Horses... and all the murderous intent of an early Peter Jackson flick, trust me, you won't regret this one. Maybe you will. Fuck off and watch the film.

Double Trouble (1992)

So I won't shit with you, by this point in the night, I was a goner. I was pretty liquored up and perhaps that's why this movie seemed like a great idea, and it is most definitely the reason I can hardly remember a thing about it. I remember Peter Paul wearing a fucking belly top, even though he's supposed to be the straight-laced of the duo, whereas David Paul (the cheeky fucker) wears a sharp suit for most of the flick. I'm not sure if their choice in attire is supposed to represent some kind of spirit of ironic humour, because I don't remember there being much wit to this film, so it's hard to tell. Maybe it doesn't matter, I dunno, I was at the "you should call her now" stage of drunk. This is definitely going to be the laziest and haziest review I've ever written.

So, the IMDB synopsis for the film is "Muscle-bound twins try to smash a jewel smuggling ring". I do remember a lot of shooting, a lot of blood, and I'm pretty sure there was some kind of corruption in the police force. It's a late 80s/early 90s buddy action flick, don't make me work so hard here.

I think the only good thing that came from this movie was that I decided not to drunk-dial anyone by the end of it. I'm sorry, I really can't tell if the movie was awesome or I was just hammered. Either way, ten out of ten stars, or whatever. Watch it yourself, you tell me what it's like.

Indie Lyrics Adapted for the Modern Death Metal Fan

Coming back at you like a weird and persistent uncle, it's TMINI's switchy lyricy thing that I did...once. Except now I'm doing it again. Except different. I've no shame in rehashing an old idea, if you thought I was above that; you don't really know me at all. I don't care how dead the horse is, I'll flog that. I'll flog that every single time. 

The Indie fan and the Death Metal fan don't have a lot of common ground. One takes ecstasy and gets into weepy DMCs in the smoking area of a club that plays Joy Division dance remixes and the other masturbates, alone, always. If you put the two together, you basically get the worst person in the entire world. So let's join those worlds together and see what happens. Here's some Indie lyrics adapted to accommodate the modern Death Metal fan.

The XX - Angels

Lyrics

And with words unspoken

A silent devotion

I know you know what I mean

And the end is unknown

But I think I’m ready

As long as you’re with me

Adapted

Until every bone is broken,

Until your blood I lay soaking,

No one will hear your screams,

Your mouth has been sewn,

Now I am ready,

To ejaculate all that's in me

Arcade Fire - Reflektor

Lyrics

I thought I found a way to enter

It’s just a Reflektor (It's just a Reflektor)

I thought I found the connector

It’s just a Reflektor (It's just a Reflektor)

Adapted

You thought I couldn't enter,

But I am the deathly specter (Deathly fucking specter),

You thought you could protect her,

But I've already fucking wrecked her (Fucking wrecked her)

Bastille - Pompeii

Lyrics

Eh-eh-o eh-o 

I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show

Adapted

BREEEEEEGGGH!!!

I want to be left in tiny slices,

Eat me slowly, eat me whole

The Killers - Human

Lyrics

Are we human or are we dancer?

My sign is vital, my hands are cold

And I'm on my knees looking for the answer

Are we human or are we dancer?

Adapted

Destroy all life, we are a cancer!
Your vital signs wither, your body grows cold,

And I'm on my knees, slamming down the hammer,

Eradicate humanity, we are a cancer!

Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know

Lyrics

In a few weeks, I will get time

To realize it's right before my eyes

And I can take it

If it's what I want to do

Adapted

My torture chamber reeks, its sinister design,

What I see right before my eyes,

Corpses floating in barrels of shit,

The trophies of victims I've subdued,

Tegan And Sara - Closer

Lyrics

Here comes the breath before we get a little bit closer

Here comes the rush before we touch, come a little closer

Adapted

Here comes the knife directly to your jugular,

Here comes my dick, probably going in your jugular

(Kinda phoned it in with this one)

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

Lyrics

I am thinking it's a sign

That the freckles in our eyes

Are mirror images and when

We kiss they're perfectly aligned

Adapted

Covered from head to toe in slime,

Fucking the holes which were once your eyes,

I review the CCTV footage and once again

I left too much of you at the scene of the crime

Fun - We Are Young

Lyrics

Tonight,

We are young,

So let's set the world on fire,

we can burn brighter than the sun.

Adapted

Tonight,

You'll become gunge,

Bodily fumes get me higher,

It won't be long before I cum

Fleet Foxes - Your Protector

Lyrics

As you lay to die beside me, baby

On the morning that you came

Would you wait for me?

The other one would wait for me

You run with the devil

You run with the devil

Adapted

I've gone insane with human rabies,

Feasting on your rotting remains,

And with absolute glee,

I make sure your children see,

I run with the devil,

BREEEEH!

I run with the devil,

The Decemberists - Don't Carry It All

Lyrics

A monument to build beneath the arbors

Upon a cliff that towers towards the trees

But every vessel pitching hard to starboard

Lay it's head on summers freckled knees

Adapted

A monument constructed before the temple of slaughter,

Skeletal dust is carried by the breeze,

And not a slither of flesh left by the ravenous horde,

Nothing but carnage as far as the eyes can see

Ringo Starr is the Cosmic Archfiend and We're All So Very Fucked.

Behold, that which time cannot account for.

Ladies and gentlemen, in light of recent events of which I had no control over, I feel as though withholding the knowledge that I have possessed for some time now would only be to deny the human race a chance at survival. Survival? Pardon me, reader, my mind is not as it once was as my lethargic fingers haven't kept a log on my thoughts in some time, as you may have noticed through the lack of articles and posts on TMINI in recent months. 'Survival' is not the word I was looking for, for the world I know of has nary a chance of complete survival, merely a duration of existence allotted to it by a force older and more powerful than the mind can comprehend. Dare I say, to even begin to imagine what malign powers are at hand would be to submit yourself to madness. I only ask that you trace the very outline of what I am about to reveal to you, and please do not attempt to excavate further into this awful chasm of timeless, forbidden knowledge.

A Wikipedia page and a birth certificate would have you believe that one Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, was born on the 7th of July, year 1940. This is only somewhat true. Something was born on this day that year, though it was spewed forth as merely a vehicle for something far more sinister. Something that Father Time himself cannot recall, an antediluvian tyrant that, with the slightest inhalation, could ingest all observable galaxies as well as those we have yet to discover and create eternal nothingness. The slightest inhalation.

This force, if that is the correct word for it, obviously concluded to disguise itself in human form, for what reasons I only shudder to think. I can only image that though the beast is omnipotent, it may not be entirely omniscient, and thus a human agent was necessary for it to observe the planet earth. Why it chose the most basal drummer in the history of pop music, I will never fathom, but Richard Starkey was chosen for a reason. Perhaps for the influence and power (I think he has power, somewhere) and most probably for his extensive touring around the globe with The Beatles, Starkey, Starr, was the perfect camcorder for an entity deciding on whether or not we, the human race, could be of any use to it.

"Why tell us this now?", you ask? If I haven't rammed it down your throats enough by this point, I have my own two hour radio show on Core of Destruction radio. Not five seconds after I had written a smarmy comment about Ringo Starr, had my show been cut off the airwaves. It now knows that I know and if I haven't doomed humanity entirely, I have most certainly doomed myself. I find solace only in the knowledge that I have, in some way, shared out the burden of this dark wisdom. So here I sit alone in my bedroom, blindfolded, smoking my final cigarette and hoping that blaring old Rolling Stones will serve as some kind of paper-thin protection. Existence is suffering, to suffer is to exist. Remember me as I was.

Liam Doyle

Casa de Diversion And Cover Songs That Will Hurt Your Soul.

I'm not going to lather myself up in baby oil and slide around the kitchen floor as if I'm entirely sure of what I'm doing, because I'm really not. I don't know a whole lot about Casa de Diversion, as I was only introduced to it by assistant gobshite, temple of doom treasurer, and good buddy, Joolz Palmer, this afternoon. What I can tell you about Casa de Diversion is that it is a bandcamp page full of underground metal and punk compilations that absolutely seethe with grit teeth animosity and repugnance. I haven't had my ears on the compilation scene since the glory days of blogs like Doomed To Be Stoned In A Sludge Swamp and Day After The Sabbath, both of which introduced me in my formative years to the music that I still adore in my early adulthood. They were both websites run by dedicated music fans whose sole purpose was to support the contemporary underground as well as to unearth classics buried beneath decades worth of dust, cigarette butts and crushed empties. 

As far as I know, The Sludge Swamp has since gone private, but The Day After The Sabbath is still toiling in Satan's service, peddling out compilations full of classic metal, punk, krautrock, psychedelic, you name it. So, despite being out of the loop with the art of the compilation (or mix tape) in recent years, it's really refreshing to hear the kind of music Casa de Diversion is promoting and the manner in which it promotes it. I'd forgotten what it was I loved about compilations until checking out the CdD Bandcamp page today. It's like attending a wine tasting event, puking your fucking guts up after the first sip, but soldiering on until your stomach lining is toilet paper thin. In short, Casa de Diversion doesn't play around, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in broadening their 'musical horizons' (I fucking hate saying that).

However, perhaps the most interesting compilations that CdD has to offer are its covers series. So far, there are three volumes worth of cover songs by some of the most abhorrent, stinking, vile and noisy ghouls that the underground has spit up over the years, and from what I've heard so far, each track takes the original song, drags it through a mile of razor wire and blows its load all over the poor fucker's face. Some tracks, like Low Places' cover of "Deathcrush", are far more conventional than others, but until you've heard a Cranberries tune played by the sonic battering Vestiges, you haven't really captured the spirit of these compilations. That's what makes them special, you'll find yourself thinking "Fuck me, never thought I'd hear that one". Here are some of my favourite picks from the Casa de Diversions' cover compilations, just to give you a taste of the kind of hammering that these band inflict on the songs we all know, and either love or hate.

Full Of Hell - Atmosphere (Joy Division)

Incendiary - Sabotage (The Beastie Boys)

Eddie Brock - Misery Business (Paramore)

Super Mutant - Passive Position/ I End Me (Despise You)

Machinist! - I Kill Everything I Fuck (GG Allin & The Murder Junkies)

Renouncer - Sour Times (Portishead)

****

Vist

Casa de Deversion Bandcamp

for more audio sadomasochism.

Movie Ideas #3; Teabag 2: Redemption.

Movie Ideas #2: CABIN CLEAVER.

You're Wrong. I'm Wrong. We're All Wrong.

A little something to set the tone

I've always said that this website is my baby and that I'd never allow it to become something akin to an overweight neck beard's crusty, cum-stained bedside tissue box. ThatMakesItNotInsane isn't about politics or current events, there's no message, there are no ulterior motives. Whatever political leanings I have and whatever opinions I have are my own and I don't use the Internet as a toilet cubicle with which I can scribble my precious little thoughts for an audience of people who are just looking to have a shit in peace. Though I write, I do so only for the sake of writing, learning, becoming better and often times just taking the piss. TMINI is, as my friend Nora put it perfectly; my "little strip of the Internet". I write about the things that make me happy; the weird, the wonderful, the vulgar, the disturbing, all those fascinations I developed as a schoolboy and never quite grew out of. This is my scrapbook and I fucking love every moment I put into it, whether anyone else cares or not.

That being said, it has been a very long time since I've posted here and for the past few months I've been engaged in this inner dialogue that is starting to turn me into something I don't like, and this is the reason I'm writing this post. We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming as soon as possible, but for now I've got some bleach to vomit up and I'm having a hard time thinking of where to start. I suppose I'll try to summarize with a series of whens and whys.

Why are so many people picking sides and why are those same people digging shivs into each other to gain the higher ground? Why does everything have to be 'offensive' and 'harmful'? When did liberalism become a radical's playground (I may have only started noticing this since moving to Maynooth, I was quite innocent before that)? Why are radical feminists and conservative pricks alike all trying to bully women at the same time? Why was Robin Thicke's music video the catalyst for serious feminist discourse? Why are we referring to each other by sexual orientation/sexual identity/class/gender/race as if they're supposed to be tattooed to our wrists? What's wrong with sexual imagery? What's wrong with violent imagery? Why is everyone so easily set off? Why are people so fucking afraid of the possibility that maybe they're wrong and that the human condition can override any political system they have put their faith in? Why are people investing so much of their egos into their ideas? Why are people arguing with each other if the endgame isn't to change someone's mind, but rather to humiliate them and 'win' in front of an Internet forum audience.

I don't know who I can't stand more. At least hardcore conservatives carry themselves like pro-wrestling bad guys, they're obviously the unpopular crowd that we're all supposed to heckle, but hardcore (or 'radical') liberals are just as, if not more, infuriating than any one of them. It's as if they have the right idea, their hearts are in the right place (unless of course it's a moral high ground thing), but they express themselves in the exact same way a brainwashed Westboro Baptist Church acolyte might; loud, ignorant and attention-seeking.

In studying sociology quite closely this year, all of these issues have been on my mind and I haven't been able to escape them. This year alone I've seen once perfectly rational and level-headed people transform into 'social justice' Nazis. I've been called out for being a cishet (cisgendered heterosexual) and had it used against me as though it renders my argument invalid. I've even come under fire for holding classic liberal values, but not being 'extreme' enough. I'm no spring chicken, I know that there's no point in trying to explain your ideas to anyone on the Internet and that a good 90% of human beings are 100% fucking brain dead, but it seems as though this is the first year I've ever experienced it first hand. I've seen people rot, figuratively. Going from rational thinkers to radical thinkers ('Radical thinker' is an oxymoron) and detaching themselves from anyone who doesn't fit into their sphere.

This has all been nothing more than a spontaneous rant and nothing to be taken too seriously. I wasn't even going to finish it, I just felt like starting something, but here we are near the end. I guess that's my whole point, people take things too seriously today, and it's hurting everyone. Maybe it's always been like this and I'm really only noticing it now. I just don't see what's so wrong with being a middle-of-the-ground kind of person. I don't listen to black metal to support the underground Nazi skinhead scene, I don't eat hamburgers because I hate animals, I'm not calculated in any way, shape or form. I'm not even sure if I'm sitting on the fence, as I said before; I have my beliefs, which are largely based on individual freedom, liberty and democracy, I just don't scream and piss myself in public whenever asked about them. Maybe I am a fence-sitter, in that case, there's probably not enough room for everyone anyway.

Maybe I just need a long holiday away from people, but my chill has most definitely been harshed. Rant over.

Exploitation films; serial killing for the big screen.

The exploitation film, by name and by nature, seeks to exploit the fears of the viewer in order to make a quick buck. Just as people will stop their cars by the site of a crash to have a cheeky peek and just as many a bestselling women's magazine will contain tales of rape, murder and mutilation; so too have people always flocked to the cinema to get a glimpse of a world they really want no part of. That is what horror and exploitation films do, they provide a space for us to watch teenage girls being dismembered in a log cabin, and we don't even have to feel bad about it.

The challenge for exploitation directors has always been to keep up with the fears of their audience. Like demented puppeteers they must find new and interesting ways to punch Judy, they need to keep people shocked. So how have exploitation films kept up with the zeitgeist? Well, where better to excavate fear than from your newspaper or by settling down on the couch and switching on the six o'clock? Humanity has always worn its fears on its sleeve, and that's the secret to how writers and directors up the ante, every time. Why try to frighten people with the living dead when they're already pissed scared of the living?

On November 16, 1957, in a little amber and green stretch of Americana called Plainfield, Wisconsin, the body of hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, is found hanging upside down in a shed. Her head is missing and there is wide laceration from her vagina to her midriff. She had been missing for only a day, but the police knew exactly who to look for. That's what brought them to the "house of horrors", the home of Edward Gein.

The media exploded and turned Gein into a household name. Here was the kind of story you might find in a seedy pulp novel or a horror comic, except everything about it was real and it gave post-WWII America a new enemy, and that enemy was on home turf. Not only was it on home turf, but it lived in every small town, every neighbourhood, it lurked in every dark corner and it had a thousand faces. PSA flicks like Reefer Madness and Boys Beware were suddenly redundant, politicians and concerned citizens couldn't profile evil anymore, because evil was a small town farmer in rural Wisconsin. Evil was one of their own.

With Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock brought people like Gein to the cinema. The average Joe, the silent madman, Hitchcock exploited the new fears of a very new world. He took this intensified Western paranoia to the bank, and in doing so, gave us one of the most important horror films of all time. Bela Lugosi was on his way to becoming a parody and Christopher Lee was becoming a sex symbol, Dracula wasn't scaring anyone anymore because Dracula wasn't human, Dracula wasn't Edward Gein. Though Hammer and Universal were still peddling fantastic horror films during the 60s, and made a lot of money in doing so, it was the thrillers and Italian Giallo films that truly defined the era. Knives and madmen were more frightening than Frankenstein's monster, that much was clear.

Then, just when people thought they had put a face to evil, the game changed all over again. The late 60s brought us peace, love, tranquility and some fantastic music, I've only ever heard good things about this period, a fine time to live if ever there was one, but when it died, it died bleeding. Again, the United States, and the rest of the world with it, found fear in a new and unexplored corner. Evil could play the guitar and it could wear daisy chains. Sharon Tate and party guests were discovered, bound and mutilated, in their Los Angeles home, and Charles Manson and his 'family' were soon to become household names.

Besides earning himself the cover of Rolling Stone and an eternity in prison, Charles Manson, the manipulative cult leader and Satan of California, would go on to inspire fear and paranoia in Jane and John Doe, and shove money in the pockets of the opportunistic Hollywood directors. The 70s were dominated by films about murderous teenage cults painting suburban white fences red with blood, the common man turning on the common man, the nuclear family getting nuked. It was at this point in the early 70s that the traditional Hammer Horror coughed up its last chunk of phlegm before nodding off. The final two Christopher Lee Dracula films with Hammer were set in the 1970s, an attempt by Hammer to modernize and give new life to an old demon, but it just wasn't happening. The people wanted sensationalism, but they also wanted realism. Essentially, the movie-goer wanted to see the very worst of reality, and if this early wave of gore and extremity taught us anything, it's that reality is far more shocking than fiction. You just need to know where to find it.