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Juke-Joint Jezebel: the track that began it all

As a kid I was a big fan of the Mortal Kombat games. I was technically barred from playing violent video games by my parents. BUT I PLAYED THEM ANYWAY! Of course, when the movie adaptation came out, I (successfully) pestered my parents into letting me see it. The movie was dumb. Some cool effects and some reasonable action sequences wasn’t enough to convince 11 year-old Jim. The soundtrack, however, was a revelation!

For me, KMFDM’s Juke Joint Jezebel was the highlight of the album. It was different to just about anything I had heard at the time. It was heavy, it was dark, it had guitars and electronic stuff, but it was curiously different from everything else. I liked it!

So this track was in the background for years to come, but I never cottoned onto this stuff called industrial music. To me, it was too close to the mainstream genres to strongly indicate the wealth I was missing out on. Even if I had chanced onto other stuff, unlikely given my sheltered childhood, and limited music distribution of the time (living in the sticks ‘n all that jazz), I might not even have known what to make of it.

Finally finding love

A whole decade it was until the name KMFDM lead me down the industrial rabbit hole. It might have been sooner if I hadn’t taken a detoure down a neo hippie dead-end. Anyway, it was a decade, and it has been love ever since. At first I stayed with bands that were on the rock/metal side of the equation, but here I am, another decade on, with a full-blown love of not just the digestible, dancable, but also of the avant-garde roots.

The Mortal Kombat movie may have been a huge disappointment to me (what could I have expected?) but I dug most of the OST, which heavily influenced the development of my music tastes.

Other highlights from the Mortal Kombat OST

The super cheesy, sample heavy, theme song by Utah Saints, even back then, was a guilty indulgence.

Orbital’s Halcyon +On +On – what is a track this beautiful even doing in a movie about fighting in a tournament to save Earth from trans-dimensional invaders?

Fear Factory’s Zero Signal, along with GZR’s The Invisible were too heavy for my sensitive tastes, but would later become favourites.

Sister Machine Gun’s Burn, probably one of the band’s best tracks, was a safe favourite of young Jim’s.

Type O Negative’s Blood & Fire (Out of the Ashes Mix) was another track that pushed me along in developing an interest in metal.

 

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Killing Joke – Killing Joke – Best Album Ever

Perhaps an overstatement to call Killing Joke’s debut self-titled album (1980) the best ever, but it is certainly a post-punk classic. I’m not going to music on about it much. I suck at talking about music, except for pointing out what i like and don’t like.

It’s good. It’s full of delicious droning and throbbing, interesting (doom-heavy) lyrics and Jaz Coleman’s vocal stylings are good.

  • Requiem – a gorgeously constructed piece. Gives me chills, man.
  • Wardance – good too
  • Tomorrow’s World – chilling, throbbing, good
  • Bloodsport – The album picks up the pace here. It’s pretty good
  • The Wait – pretty good too
  • Complications – pretty good also
  • S.O.36 – slow and brooding. I like it
  • Primitive – good track. Cool droning guitars
  • Change – pretty decent track to close with – nuff said

For a review by someone who knows how to talk music, check out the review on Sputnikmusic.com. It’s pretty good.

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Close to the post

I’m working on a longer than usual comic strip, which might run over a couple of installments, so I don’t have much to say on the topic of nothing today. I do, however, have a song to share, Closer (To The Edit) by Art of Noise. I’m sure everyone, except me, has herd the track, but since I stumbled upon this gem from my birth year (84) it has been getting a lot of play on my lists.

Sure, there are more popular songs by the band such as Peter Gunn, Kiss (with Tom Jones), and Moments in Love (admittedly a beautiful track), but screw that stuff! For me, the meat of the band is in the more experimental  avant-garde gravy!

Close to the edit is a delightfully quirky electronic track from the early days of sampling technology (something the band made heavy use of). They used a nifty machine called the Farlight CMI Sampler, which was invented right here in my homeland, Australia. As a fan of old-skool electronic tunes, this track has become a favorite.

Enjoy

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More depressing haiku and other joy

Today’s super depressing haiku is delivered by Yellow Smiley guy as featured in the hit webcomic Jim Is. JK like five people have read those. Yeah, I wrote a bunch of these as a laugh, so be prepared for more jabs of eloquently executed gloom on days I don’t get around to more substantial blogging.

yellow-smilly_delivers_depressing_haiku._Witness to the void Cold fuligin penetrating Soul withered to black

As an afterword, I’m feeling great. Today, anyway. Yellow Smiley might be sounding-off in the gloom, but today I’m sickeningly positive.

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I want to be Bernard Black

So I had a had a big long post full of unashamed bleeding ready to post but decided I was a little compromised by a rather large intake of booze.

Instead I have decided to posts GIFs of that fabulous bookshop owning alco, Bernard Black. For the uninitiated, I am referring to the protagonist of Black Books, a rather fine (nay, the finest) example of contemporary British television comedy. Bernard Black is portrayed by the almost equally fabulous (but not really), Dylan Moran.















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Coffee vs Death

Woke up around 2pm this afternoon. I lay there a while contemplating… There were things that should be done. Big things, small things. Stupid things mostly. Maybe suicide was the best option, I thought.

Stuff doesn’t need to be done when you’re dead. Life becomes so much easier. No absurd places to be, no absurd conventions to follow. No one to put on a brave face for. Just simple, infinite oblivion.

comic: jim laying in bed contemplating death vs coffee

There was no one around to come bumbling in on my business. Surely it would be easy…

Eventually I decided to get up and have coffee instead. Put some music on. Talk to friends. Slowly the day appeared a little brighter, but still so many unresolved issues. Huge, sinister incorporeal issues that have no clear line of attack. Things that should bring me joy and comfort, twisted into something I can’t even face.

Put them off another day. Enjoy the small things. The coffee, the music, the friends. Smile and laugh a little. Today is here, so enjoy it.

And now I’m enjoying a fabulous cheap wine. Life is horrible, but it’s also ok, and also fantastic.

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Jim’s Industrial Musics

silly industrial music banner - rusted

So, out of all the things I could have done today I ended up spending almost all of it listening to music. It was fabulous! A friend (meet on a certain disreputable social media network) and I decided to swap playlists. She listens to a lot more of the current crop of Aggrotech, harsher electro-industrial, and industrial metal, where as I’m more into Old Skool Industrial and EBM, with some industrial rock/metal.

If you don’t know what these genres are the TVTropes website has one of the best brief articles on the genre, and of course, Wikipedia also has good stuff too. You can also hang around and check out my playlist, for a more hands on approach (because you all want to hear what I listen to).

Now, I’ve been sniffing around this music for a long time, but I wouldn’t consider myself an elite. Genre distinctions still confuse me, and I haven’t heard ALL of the precursor and formative bands. Occasionally I do get into the mood to go dig around though, so over the years I have amassed a reasonable repertoire.

So the real takeaway from today is that my friend reconnected with with Suicide Commando, which lead me to rediscover :Wumpscut. My thanks to you.

The musics

Also, if you’re on VampireFreaks, or want a social network that’s quirky and a little bent, hit me up. Don’t let the name fool you, it really is full of freaks (and some cool ladies and gents).

IM GOING TO DRINK WINE

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I can do anything!

Seriously, I can do anything! This is the sort of mind frame I’m often in by the time I should be going to bed. I’ve usually managed to achieve a small victory, finishing a few small tasks, or even something a little more weighty, if it was a particularly saucy day. I’ll be making plans for the next day. I’ll be organising. I’ll be getting ready to attack a bigger task. “I’m going to work on money tasks,” I say to myself. “I’m going to go back to uni,” I might say another night.

I’m telling myself that 4-5pm will be exercise time, and that I won’t drink an entire bottle of wine (or two) just because. I feel like life is finally under control, that I can actually do it, that after 3 long years in the wilderness I have finally reached the fucking light at the end of the fucking tunnel.

comic - man enjoying sunrise

And then the next morning I wake up like the above. Except not at all like that. All that progress from the day before is gone. During the night I’ve ended up at some earlier backup point. I wake up feeling like a pile of shit. That I can’t do anything. That my life is fucked. That everything is pointless, even if I did momentarily feel like doing something.

comic man in prison looking at fadded sunrise

At some point I drag myself out of bed. On the best days I’ll manage to shower, breakfast, and even put on clothes. On the worst days I’ll just sit in my stank and drink coffee (which is admittedly pretty fucking glorious). Little by little I try to get back to where I was the night before. Some days I get no where.

After a while I get to wondering why I’m still here. That surely it’s only a matter of time before I do something rash. And why not? Life is without meaning, all suffering is futile, and any joy is transient. Why not get blasted and go play by the cliffs, or get to working on a serious heroin addiction? Why not?Against It all, I’m still here.

I’m still here because there is that little something that says, I am a unique fucking snowflake! I can do this, damn it! Life may only have whatever fleeting value and point I bestow upon it, but I’m going to do it my way.

So, while every day isn’t waking up to the heavens beaming warmth, love, and joy down upon me, I can work my hardest to live how I want to live, and achieve all I can.

Put on your pants and join me.