COMMUNION OF THE CLOVEN FLAMES (PART 2)

All images © Dennis Dread

As with everything on this site, reposting anywhere for any reason without written authorization from Dennis Dread is theft and will be dealt with accordingly.

PART 3

COMMUNION OF THE CLOVEN FLAMES (PART 1)

All images © Dennis Dread

As with everything on this site, reposting anywhere for any reason without written authorization from Dennis Dread is theft and will be dealt with accordingly.

PART 2

COMMUNION OF THE CLOVEN FLAMES

It is admittedly strange when those you come to regard amongst your closest of friends also happen to comprise one of the most untamable bands currently in existence, but that is precisely where I find myself now that the smoke of madness, possession and ecstatic intoxication clears and those sinister forces conjured by torchlight under a blood red moon recoil yet again into the shapeless void just beyond my peripheral vision. The wild, wild, WILD HUNT descended upon Europa over the course of 26 dates in March/April 2014, unfurling pestilent tendrils across twelve borders and sweeping countless souls up in its spectral frenzy. As the tour's official Stage Manager/Fire Demon/Chieftain (that last one is Erik's nomenclature, but I proudly accept it), I can say without hesitation that it was an honor to sweat, bleed and burn alongside some of the most devoted artists and hardest working soldiers in the music business. It was also very special to meet so many of you along the way...often while I was covered in black soot, blood and offal! To you I humbly present the following photo diary documenting 30 days astride the Devil's thunder. A more intimate glimpse into WATAIN and DEGIAL on the road you are unlikely to find. As for the sniveling expressions of dull complacency witnessed in certain venues, allow me to put forth the lofty notion that the essence of black metal- and any real art with purpose for that matter- is about transgression. It is a shrill call to boldly step across forbidden lines and embrace the consequences with every fiber of one's being. It is a dour invitation to embody the destructive principles of fire and brandish that adversarial flame with ruthless will. It certainly won't be captured, co-opted or ceased with a camera, no matter how desperately you hold it up in front of your face like an impotent mask and allow the fleeting sacred moment to pass without impact. But perhaps that call is heard by only the few. As below, so above. On this Walpurgis Night I salute my brothers, old and new, from Uppsala/Stockholm/Åland and the entire Iron Crew. These photos are mostly for you. Until we meet again...TO THE DEATH!!!!

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE 

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

THE WILD HUNT OVER EUROPA!

Consummatum est.

DEATH IS THE CROWN OF ALL

OPEN BIRTHDAY CARD TO ROBERT WILLIAMS

"The drawn line is the Devil's jiz stain." 

~ Robt. Williams

Robert Williams, one of the incontestable sires of underground comix and dick-kicking rough rider of representational graphics, celebrates 71 years today. I shouldn't have to extol the virtues of this American maverick who has done so much to define modern art over the past 50 years, but allow me to bang these keys in reverential cadence for just a moment in case you numbnuts don't fully understand the magnitude of his awesome impact. 

See, it's almost easy to overlook Williams' legacy in 2014 because so much of what we now take for granted in the arts - and what so many seem to have completely misunderstood - gained traction in the tremendous wake of his freewheelin' and pioneerin' days as a delinquent transplant in the City of Angels. Williams moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to California in 1963, ostensibly to study art at Los Angeles City College (and perhaps evade legal trouble back home). He was a young artist who naturally gravitated toward hot rod culture, probably because his dad had operated a drive-in diner where as a teen he developed a keen appreciation for automotive engineering brilliance, rugged blue collar get-shit-done-ery and the newly emerging musical ruckus that suddenly provided the perfect soundtrack for both. You must remember that this thing called rock 'n' roll was also built for speed but had only recently evolved - some might say deviated - from the twisted earthy roots of black blues, gospel and horny white rebel music to challenge social restraint in the early 50s. Its sinister force was burstin' out but still rather pubescent in 1965 - one year before the prohibition of LSD in California - when Williams landed his dream job as Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's art director, cranking out beautifully detailed monster t-shirts and magazine ads while dodging heat from local law enforcement and 1% biker gangs (according to folklore, Roth gave Williams a job and a handgun to defend himself while doing it). It was here, on the lunatic fringes of vulgar advertising aesthetics, that he began developing the body of work and hyperactive "kustom kulture" style that would characterize one of the most important artistic movements of the late 20th century.

In fact, the title of his first published art collection went on to be usurped by generations of art school lunkheads who are all too happy to brand themselves under the ironic "lowbrow" banner that Williams coined and championed from Zap Comix #4, published in 1969, to Juxtapoz Magazine, which he co-founded in 1994. Imagine how Venom must have felt when they realized the name of their sophomore record had become an entire heavy metal sub-genre. Incidentally, Black Metal was released the very same year as The Lowbrow Art of Robert Williams (1982, in case you're keeping score), the collection that introduced him to a new decade of miscreants and featured his controversial painting Appetite for Destruction on its cover. Yes, just a few years later that painting became both the cover and the title of one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of the past three decades. Perhaps unfortunately, Guns N' Roses were not the most articulate or even fully conscious defenders of free expression and the waning Moral Majority made it their business to see that cover quickly and unceremoniously replaced with the comparatively bland tattoo motif that your mom probably has tattooed on her ass known throughout the world today. It wasn't the first time Williams' art had been protested and censored, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. The point is, rock 'n' roll has always been the Devil's music and, as Williams himself once so eloquently proclaimed, "The drawn line is the Devil's jiz stain."

I've only met the man twice in my life, both occasions brief and punctuated by my stammering adoration. At one such encounter on May 17, 1998 someone from his entourage mentioned that Williams isn't particularly comfortable with small children, so in the spirit of fair play I asked him to hold my daughter while I fumbled for my camera in the diaper bag and caught the awkward moment above on 35mm. I haven't yet seen the award winning documentary that came out last year, but I reckon I know Mr. Bitchin' well enough to confidently surmise that he ain't one to suffer fools gladly or run with the pack...even if the pack has exquisitely rendered colors. Or corporate sponsorship. Which is why I feel so many today have missed the fundamental outsider message...the underlying outlaw principle...the guiding inverted star of his creative wisdom. There is strength in numbers, perhaps, but little glory. And he should know. When Williams was drawing the outrageous cartoons that helped define the very term and concept "underground comix" he was one of about 30 artists in the entire world bold enough to kick against the wimps (if I may paraphrase both Nick Cave and the King James Bible) with a $3.95 funny book. He took the fine art world more or less by storm as he had always intended and dragged figurative art - what he himself calls Conceptual Realism - into the 21st century so cretins like you and I can occasionally earn enough cash to pay the electricity bill while cackling madly under a full spectrum desk lamp. All I know is that Robert Williams, the well-spoken gentile of soft southern drawl and the rambunctious legend of demonic liberation through devotion to craft, means a great deal to me as an occasional stutterer of words and infrequent scrawler of images. Pandora's box has already been smashed wide open. Now what to do with all them demons? 

REINCARNATION

Check out this great Drew Elliott painting circa 1987 that reader Richard Parr was gracious enough to share with me today! This would've been created around the same time Drew did his painting for Necrophagia's debut LP Season of the Dead. Here's that cover in both its original format and the digitally "enhanced" version that accompanied the 1998 Red Stream CD reissue.

Outlaw Archer

If you're at all like me (thank your therapist that you're not), you love the few people who matter in your life everyday of the year. So a dumb holiday like Valentine's Day becomes cloyingly sentimental at best...crushingly depressing at worst. If you need something real to celebrate today, why not bang your head for the triumph of STREET METAL? 33 years ago today, New York's Frigid Bich recorded their debut single 'Call Us Robin Hoods' at Master Sounds Studios. They were 16 years old. Suck it, cupid!

And this one goes out to my own lil teenage rebel who has been my Valentine for nearly 17 years (insert winking heart emoticon here). What? You think I'm a loveless cynic like you???




"Rock 'n' roll and alcohooool! Let's have a blast, let's have a ball!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THRONES!

I first "met" Joe Preston on September 28, 1991. At the time he was playing in a band called the Melvins who were touring the US with another little band called Nirvana. Nirvana was really good that night, but what I remember most about the evening was the colossal slow motion bludgeoning that Joe and his bandmates delivered to a mostly unprepared audience of stoned punks at the Marquee in New York City. To be clear, we didn't actually meet that night. However, my central nervous system was introduced to the glacial four stringed armament that has made Joe an international legend...and my trembling bowels threatened to evacuate the premises in the process. Even the leather daddies strolling around outside the S&M club across the street with their pierced cocks flapping all over the place seemed genuinely unnerved by the sheer heaviness of this avalanche of sound.

Fast forward to May 3, 1997. Neurosis triumphantly punished a sold out crowd at Portland, Oregon's now sadly defunct Satyricon with a strange one-man-band called Thrones opening. I didn't realize until afterwards that this unassuming fellow was the very same juggernaut I had seen several years earlier. Since then I've had the pleasure of seeing Joe perform lots of times. I've seen him during his brief stint with High On Fire and I've seen him bellow mammalian syllables with Last Empire while anchoring their flights of fancy to the benthic zone. A couple years ago he even came down to the DJ night I was doing at the time to perform a cinematic all-synth set for those brave enough to stand for the cyborg demon in a dark basement on a Wednesday night. Joe is the Hasil Adkins of low end frequencies. He is the Abner Jay of white noise amplification. He saw Slayer with Mace at a southeast Portland theater in 1984 and doesn't need to strut around in a bullet belt to prove it. This weekend the gentle lover of felines rightly celebrates the 20th anniversary of his solo band Thrones with a special show at Rotture in Portland, Oregon. He's asked me to play some records in between the live shenanigans, which is unfortunate because I've purchased about 5 records in the past year and all of them were released on Varèse Sarabande. But when legend summons, it is wise to heed the call. Congrats, Joe.

2013 IS DEAD!

Best wishes to you all in 2014!