From The Dark Past

I first heard of Euronymous when Darkthrone dedicated their second album, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, to "the true father of underground black metal". When we got further and further into Black Metal, moving away from the Death Metal that we had been listening to for years, one name kept cropping up over and over again: Mayhem.
We knew from reading zines and from contacts that they had been going since the mid eighties and were weird; they avoided all conventions of what we expected from people in bands, even underground bands, self financing albums, the suicide of Dead, the whole evil image that made Glen Benton look like a puppy dog.
We watched with interest the growth of the scene centred around a few bands, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Thorns, Havohej, Beherit and the mysterious one man project Burzum.
One day, I was on my way home from college, I stopped off to buy some smokes, and something interesting caught my eye. Was that really Emperor on the front of the Kerrang? It was, and the article (We Are But Slaves of the One With Horns) that was inside was the start of Black Metal as we know it, but th death of Black Metal as we had known it.
It seemed to accelerate away from us weekly, K came out every tuesday I think, and Every Week there would be a story about Grishnact or Euronymous or Faust or someone.
Each time, the magazine would exaggerate, Varg would play up to the interviewer and we could not believe it. Black Metal had gone from something mysterious in zines to being on pages next to interviews with the Almighty.
It still came as a shock to us when it was announced that Øystein had been murdered, the shock magnified by reading about it in Kerrang, which just seemed a bit improper. After all, they thought it was a bit of a joke. Varg was interviewed, saying he was glad he was dead, he would dance and piss on his grave.
He also said that he wasn't shocked, he had enemies in Sweden and there were a lot of "drug people" near Øystein's flat.
This is something that I often feel is overlooked when people talk about that time. We all know what the court case said happened that night, but people often forget that there was a noticeable rift between Varg and Øystein that was cloaked in respect for what the other did musically.
They both had different visions of what they wanted and when Varg offed Øystein he won. He reinvented himself so much after the event that few people remember the smaller interviews in zines and things, he actually used to be a metalhead once.
Euronymous' death meant that the whole direction of Black Metal changed, his vision was of elitism, dictatorship, total dedication to the underground.
Those ideals went out of the scene with him, to be replaced my crazy neo pagan Nazism one hand, and due in part to the sensational coverage in Kerrang lots of mainstream metal fans got interested and seemed to congregate around more gothy bands on the other. What would he have made of that?
I often wonder how his admiration for communism and dictatorship went over with Csihar when they recorded in the Grieghalle.

Like I say, it was the birth and death of Black Metal at the same time.

Under the radar...

...things that I missed in the "best of 2009"....

Mayhem - Life Eternal

Beautiful package containing the release of Atilla's demos from the recording of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.
Big fat Varg basslines, drum intros, rough mixes.
Comes with card outer, fold out box, loads of foil stickers and an insert containing copies of correspondence between Øystein and Atilla. On Saturnus/Season of Mist, limited to 3000.

Abigail - Sweet Metal Baby Slut

10 tracks of black/thrash/speed, lo-fi songs about metal, beer and women.
Recorded and delivered in the way only our Japanese friends know. Japan is the future of Heavy Metal.

Sixx - Sister Devil

As NWN say:
The sonic essence and ideology behind SIXX was in parallel to what they had started with VON; emphasis on atomosphere, same recording style, Satanic imagery and lyrics. However the introduction of new musical elements and influences from the likes of Joy Division and Diamanda Galas kept SIXX from getting much attention during their short existence (sound familiar?). They played two gigs in the San Francisco area and killed the project after one demo.

What am I looking forward to in 2010? so far, new Sabbat (Jpn) and CIRCLE THE WAGONS!

Much Loved

RIP Les Paul

Les Paul died today, at the age of 94.
I was going to do a big post about it, but instead, here is a photo of Øystein Aarseth (who is also dead, but not aged 94) playing a Les Paul.

Take it away, Euro!

...In 1991, Euronymous asked me to replace Dead on vocals in Mayhem...

One of the most visually pleasing things I have ever seen, and full of bits to fill in the blanks that are all the way through the half a story you think you know.

Original mixes of Cursed In Eternity/Pagan Fears/Freezing Moon/Funeral Fog/Life Eternal with Count Grishnacht's bass mixed higher, different vocal stylings in some parts and a previously unheard drum intro to Freezing Fog.

Strictly limited to 3000 copies, this is a must for any serious fan of those early, heady days. I was extremely lucky, mine came in the post today, won off ebay for a sum so reasonable that I can't even believe it properly.

Atilla's notes on the inner sleeve poignantly describe his despair at the death of Euronymous, and the effect it had on him back home in Hungary, but I won't reproduce that here, you can no doubt read the story on the web somewhere now it has been told.

Well done to Mr Csihar, this package sounds amazing, and looks even better.

Mayhem - Birmingham Gig - Video

I didn't realise we had footage of the recent Mayhem clip taken at the Birmingham leg of their European tour on February 26th. The video is only about 15 seconds long but it shows the very end of the show, when Atilla Csihar pulled his "prop" table to the floor and all of the lights went out, ending the show. Hell, he even throws a claw too for good measure.

The sound is terrible on this clip, but what can you do? I'm happy just to find this clip - I honestly didn't even know that we had it!

Mayhem, Birmingham Barfly, 26th February 2008

Last night we travelled from Liverpool to see Mayhem at the Birmingham Barfly.

There had been a change in the bill; support was just meant to be one band but were "treated" to two support bands instead. The first band we arrived at the end of their set; so I couldn't tell you who they were or really what they sounded like.
The second band....whoah. They were called Dimension something or other, wore body armour, had fans blowing their hair everywhere, kept asking if we were "having fun yet" and played a Prodigy cover.
Anyway....after a short wait, Mayhem's intro tape comes on, Silvester Anfang and the band come onstage, Atilla dressed as some form of crazed Chaplin-essque dictator, with globe surrounded by pig's heads and candles. He sings at the globe as if he's plotting the demise of the world or something, stabbing at it with an inverted patriarchal cross. Necrobutcher is over on our side of the stage, and Gorgoroth's newest member Hellhammer is thrashing away behind his kit.
We can't really see Blasphemer too well from our side of the stage because we are watching Atilla's antics.

The set is a good mix of old and new material; Deathcrush mixing well with Illuminate Eliminate and Freezing Moon, all held together with Hellhammer's amazing drumming.
There are projections being displayed on the background of cities levelled in wars and tanks and bombed out churches, all fitting in with Atilla's mad dictator look.
They finish with Pure Fucking Armageddon, Atilla smashes the crucifix into the globe, sending a piece of the cross flying into the crowd, pushes the table over and the band leave the stage.
Awesome.

After we drove home, I was sat in the front room of our house telling my girlfriend about the show when at 1am there was an earth tremor.
It's nothing to worry about, just Øystein Aarseth and Per Yngve Ohlin spinning in their respective graves thinking about the support band with the body armour.

Some more pictures:




Link: Mayhem Official Site.

Mayhem UK Tour

See you at the Birmingham date.