It’s pretty amazing GWAR have made it as far as they have, considering how much of their act is a gimmick – it’s probably because they’ve been so good at their gimmick, their initial crude, attention-getting stage theatrics evolving over time into a kind of performance art that demands much more than just being able to play the guitar like a god. Oderus Urungus appearing as a Fox News commentator? Not even James Hetfield could pull that off.
This is one of my absolute favorite metal songs, period – the jazzy first couple of verses giving way to that heavy riffing in the middle, and then just exploding gloriously at the end, LOVE LOVE LOVE. The video is also way up there for the band’s brilliant plastering of themselves across the manic sugary landscape of breakfast happytime cereal boxes – your children are eating poison! – while the kids discover a very dubious bonus-treat toy and various bodily fluids fly around in the background.
Two forces of nature meet within the genteel environs of a 90’s talk show. This is in honor of Joan’s upcoming documentary, which I am so going to see when it opens up at the IFC – that woman has some verrrrry interesting demons – and I love how she handles this interview, no uptight moralistic scolding, no digust, just, yeah, at the end of the day, it’s really all just showbiz.
I got the Bogie and Bacall Signature Collection box set, Download’s Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995, and quite a bit of fancy black lace underwear.
But, THIS!
I know I’m human scum and can’t be a chooser and all, but I’m kind of bummed I didn’t get doomed by Balsac.
Saw GWAR in Manhattan last night while trying to recover from getting sick over the weekend – right now, not at my best. So, a couple gems dug up from YouTube for fellow scumdogs out there.
Here they are at the beginning of their career. Baby Balsac! I love how they haven’t changed AT ALL in the past 25 years – no Pantera-style we’re-glam-no-whoops-we’re-badass image whiplashing here – just adding more and more and MORE to the original stage show. They’re like 45 now, major major props for sticking this long with an idea they had when they were teenagers. And I don’t know who that is on the right (Beefcake the Mighty, with really tiny gladiator spikes?) but in terms of feral shirtlessness, Taylor Lautner, eat your heart out.
And this clip claims to be their first TV appearance, a news crew happened to run across them while they were shooting a video. In the snow. The quality is not great, but it’s wonderful to behold six or seven friends who are all passionately committed to the same delightfully ridiculous heavy metal vision. As well as their burgeoning media savvy, long before they refined themselves for the talk show circuit.
And – not like you’ll be needing this for a while since last night was their final show of the Lust in Space tour, but it’s always handy – PositivelyBLEAK’s Guide to Getting the GWAR off for the white-shirted targets of Oderus’ cuttlefish and anybody else within radius of the blood cannon.
No Etsy Highlights today, due to starting a new prescription and ending up with the queen mother of all allergic reactions. Swelling and itching and turning red all over the place, today feels like it will end either with a trip to a Brooklyn emergency room or a call to the SciFi network.
So, since it’s gotten rather difficult to concentrate…
“We weren’t talented enough to make it unless we wore these silly costumes.” HAhaha.
