DW and Heavy Metal

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shanedwyer
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DW and Heavy Metal

Post by shanedwyer »

I’m not much of a fan of the steel-mill-at-full-tilt cacophony that is heavy metal. However, it’s interesting to note that one bunch of Irish rockers have taken DW’s work as both provenance of their name and inspiration for at least one of their...er...’songs’.

So, here’s Abaddon Incarnate performing their 2001 toe-tapper They Use Dark Forces:

Web Page Name

Apparently, the lyrics go something like this:

Frau von Altern, you are your father’s whore.
Frau von Altern- Sephirotic tree is laughing.
There was a case of satanic abuse during the Second World War.
A Yiddish necromancer incested his daughter in the dungeons of his great hall.
His masses were aimed to kill off the suitors who desired her to be their wife.
Kept in his unfatherly clutches, she yearned to end her defiled life.
Frau von Altern, suicidal Jewess.
Frau von Altern, you are Satan’s whore.
Once again the Israel god abandons his flock of leeches.
Left to their own perversions, they will self extinguish.
She took her life with an army Luger and, with a note, said: “Goodbye.
F*ck you father and your Qabalistic blasphemies.
May the god of Israel have mercy on your soul."


Ghastly aural gurning which stretches the meaning of the word ‘music’ to breaking point (and a greasy anti-semitic couplet to boot)- but an intriguing enough cultural document. If not a melodious one.
ericmocata
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Post by ericmocata »

So it would seem that we do not share the same musical tastes, Shane. Although I listen to all kinds of music, my favorite is metal, predominantly death and black metal. I took a listen to this song and it would mostly fall under death metal. Not a bad song, in my opinion. Of course, some of the bands I listen are usually dismissed as big walls of noise by some, but it definitely is not everybody's cup of tea.

A funny thing is that my best friend and I also record music, but just for fun and most of it is not distributed to more than a few people. Once we were trying to finish up a CD and think up a title for it and I wanted to call it They Used Dark Forces, but he didn't want to because he thought if we gave it to somebody who didn't know us personally he or she could think we were neo-Nazis, since the book deals with Nazis. I made the simple point that next to nobody would know it was the title of a book, much less know anything about that book, even though the title isn't really referring to Nazis. And I must point out that the only reason he knew what the title referred to was from me. The goofiest part is that, since he refused this title and didn't have a better one, he basically asked what else we could call it and I just blurted out a really sarcastic and idiotic title. We didn't really finish the recording, but he did mix down what we had and on his iPod he gave it that ridiculous joke title I had said and it remains that way to this day.

We did record song with the title The Talisman of Set (and I think I don't need to explain that title), which is a weird experimental piece. It definitely still has the metal element, but it's all improvised by us, so it doesn't have any traditional structure. I still would like to create a more traditional song about a Wheatley story or perhaps an entire album.

And in case you're curious about other music I listen to, I like a lot of early rock like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, all that great doo-wop stuff plus a lot of '70s stuff such as KC and the Sunshine Band. And I dig Norah Jones, Mazzy Star, horror movie scores and on and on.
shanedwyer
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Post by shanedwyer »

Hi Eric. Although I did find They Use Dark Forces almost unbearably awful, I do appreciate that Heavy Metal is a very broad church and not all of it bad, by any means. If by chance I hear something on the radio by Def Leppard or Bon Jovi, I still feel something of the thrill and joy they evoked when I was young.

Doo wop? Great stuff! One of my best mates is a former US bootneck from NYC and when we meet up (which is about once a year), it’s out with the beer and logging on to YouTube for Dion and the Belmonts, Randy and the Rainbows, The Elegants, The Demensions...

Your proposed album based on a Wheatley story sounds more than interesting. And if you’ve any of your previous work to hand- your Talisman of Set for example- why not post it here? I’d genuinely like to hear it...And it could hardly be any worse than They Use Dark Forces ;).
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Post by Darren »

Of course we must mention the most famous DW - Heavy Metal Connection. BLACK SABBATH, with legendary lead singer Ozzy Osbourne.

Legend has it that in the late 60s one of the band members was a big DW fan and suggested the band use his black magic themes as a concept for their band.

Wikipedia has an alternative DW linked version of the story: "A cinema across the street from the band's rehearsal room was showing the 1963 Boris Karloff horror film Black Sabbath directed by Mario Bava. While watching people line up to see the film, Butler noted that it was strange that people spend so much money to see scary movies. Following that, Osbourne and Butler wrote the lyrics for a song called "Black Sabbath", which was inspired by the work of horror and adventure-story writer Dennis Wheatley."

Perhaps we should have a performance of this DW inspired song at this year's convention.
Regards,

Darren.
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Post by Steve Whatley »

Darren, does this mean you are coming to the Convention in November???

It would be great to see a new face there.

Not - I hasten to add - that there is anything wrong with the faces which are usually there![font=Times New Roman] [/font]
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Post by Darren »

Yes indeed. That's the plan - I booked annual leave well in advance. I'm looking forward to having someone to discuss DW with - I don't know any DW fans personally.
Regards,

Darren.
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Post by Steve Whatley »

Splendid news! I'll look forward to meeting you, and I'm sure everyone else will too.

All Best, Steve[font=Times New Roman] [/font]
Darren
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Post by Darren »

Thanks Steve. I've followed the conventions over the years with some envy. You don't know me but I feel that I know you all from the convention reports and submissions to this forum.

As we are on the subject of the convention - when are arrangements usually made for the attendance?
Regards,

Darren.
Steve Whatley
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Post by Steve Whatley »

Charles has mentioned arrangements for this year's Convention under that topic, and invited new attenders (or should we be delegates?!!) to contact him privately.

However, when he reads this, I'm sure he'll contact you.

Final confirmation and payment is normally sought a couple of months before the event, if my memory serves me correctly. [font=Times New Roman] [/font]
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Post by ericmocata »

Hey Shane, if you want to hear some of the stuff I have recorded, there are some samples here:

http://grandguignol.bandcamp.com

This stuff (the Grand Guignol material) is the more experimental material my friend and I work on. "Talisman of Set" is not on there right now, but these samples will give you an idea of what it is like. I will try to get "Talisman of Set" up there sometime soon, but it is a bit on the long side, just over 10 minutes. The connection to Wheatley is completely abstract, as there aren't really any lyrics to the piece. This stuff wasn't meant to have anything close to traditional song structure and it was all improvised.

We play this stuff out the window on Halloween to go with the decorations.

I have done some more traditional stuff, song-structure wise, that is, but there's not any of it posted at the moment.

And you needn't worry about hurting my feelings by not liking it, if that ends up being the case. It is definitely not for a broad audience. I'm not sure if anybody likes the stuff other than my friend and me, to be honest.
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Post by shanedwyer »

I actually did enjoy that Eric. I love atmospheric mood pieces à la Harold Budd or Philip Glass. When I was a teenager I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my mates- and we’d always have something haunting and evocative playing in the background. Your Grand Guignol stuff would’ve been the perfect soundtrack for those late night sessions.

Well done guys.
ericmocata
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Post by ericmocata »

Thanks for the kind words, Shane. We haven't had much feedback about that stuff to date, so I am usually curious as to what people who are not the two of us think of that stuff.
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Post by Darren »

I loved it, Eric. I particularly liked Carnival of the Damned and xenward - Incantation - they remind me of Klaus Schulze or a more ambient Art Zoyd. I always read the DW black magic stories to Klaus Schulze music as the tracks are usually about 60 minutes long and provide that sinister atmosphere for the stories.

A 60 minute Carnival of the Damned would be great to have on whilst reading The Haunting of Toby Jugg.

Is there any more?
Regards,

Darren.
ericmocata
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Post by ericmocata »

Darren, thanks for the comments. I am glad you enjoyed it. The xenward song is actually all my collaborator/best friend, xymirror. If you dug that one, check out the Youtube page. Just search for "xymir" and you should find a channel called "Centralia Records". It features a few other xenward tracks, which I hope you'll dig like the other xenward song, but we plan on putting some other stuff on there as well (Grand Guignol and also some of the other stuff we record, which is less experimental). I know he'll be happy to hear about your comments about "Incantation".

As for the Grand Guignol stuff, there is more. In fact, most of the Grand Guignol on that bandcamp site consists of samples. There are only a couple of complete songs on there for Grand Guignol. Some of the songs are about 3-4 minutes, but others get up to about 20 or so minutes. I guess we've just been a bit lazy about adding more stuff to the site. We also want to put together some videos for a few songs, mostly abstract imagery, probably. I think we'll see about at least adding a couple of more complete songs to the bandcamp site, which would probably be sometime this weekend.
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Post by Darren »

Interesting post about Black Sabbath on the below heavy metal website. And Dennis Wheatley is mentioned in the first line. :smt035

http://www.rockol.it/artista/Black-Sabbath
Regards,

Darren.
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