Like most MMA fans, I've spent a good deal of time wishing I was one of those modern day gladiators we call fighters. Now, I don't really want to be an MMA fighter. My cardio is shit, and more importantly, I don't relish the idea of getting my head kicked in on television.
Mostly, I just want to walk down the ramp to the octagon with crowd cheering me on. I've thought a lot about how that walk would go. I've really thought about my entrance music. I think I have it down to two songs.
So in honour of this weekend's Elite XC fight, here are my would-be MMA entrance themes.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Queens, New York, the man who took his rap money and invested in a delicious sports drink, FIDDY CENT!
Everybody knows Fiddy's story by this point, so there's no reason for me to get redundant.
In fact, I'm not going to write anything at all. This song makes me insane. It's so good. I love how intentionally obnoxious it is.
Two lines for you to think on:
"Have a baby by me, baby/be a millionaire/I'll write the cheque before the baby comes/who the fuck cares?"
and
"Get a tan?/I'm already black/Rich?/I'm already that."
Wow.
The Competition
In the red corner, from Chicago, Texas, Belgium and various other places, THE REVOLTING COCKS!
The Revolting Cocks are basically just Al Jourgensen from Ministry and a rotating cast of other musicians. Rumour has it the band was named by an angry bartender. Jourgensen and some of his buddies were being tossed from a bar in the early '80s. As the bartender ejected them, he called them "a bunch of revolting cocks."
I have an odd relationship with Ministry. I never got as into them as most of my friends did, but I love all of Jourgensen's non-Ministry side projects (The Cocks, 1,000 Homo DJs). It's just his main band I'm sort of indifferent to.
This is The Revolting Cocks cover of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya' Think I'm Sexy." I have a feeling like there's a fighter who's already used this as entrance music, but I could be wrong. I know Jenna Jameseon used to strip to it when she feature danced. (I read that in her autobiography.)
As always, you should comment to vote, votes are due by midnight on Friday.
Showing posts with label goths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goths. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The Depressing British Band Battle in Bizzaro World: tATu vs. In Extremo
OK, so you may remember a battle a little while back that pitted Sisters of Mercy against The Smiths.
This is a rematch, sort of.
I found really questionable covers of both bands' songs and have decided to put those videos into the ring. Why? Because I couldn't think of a better battle for this week and both videos are fucking hilarious.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Berlin, Germany, a band that has produced what may be the most fuckdickulous video in the history of music videos, IN EXTREMO.
In Extremo were founded in 1995 when two separate bands, a Rammstein-esque Krautrock act called Noah invited a group of neo-medieval folk musicians called Corvus Corax on stage for horribly ill-conceived jam session.
After the session, they were so pleased that Noah vocalist Michael Rhein suggested they make it a permanent arrangement, creating the world's first industrial band to feature lutes, bagpipes and something called a schawn. All seven of the band members took on ridiculous pseudonyms, Rhein dubbed himself "The Last Unicorn," and they decided to go by the collective moniker In Extremo. (It's Latin for In the Extreme.)
According to the band's MySpace, they played their first gig as In Extremo on March 29, 1997 in front of 1,000 people at the Leipzig Town Hall Market. Apparently there's not a lot to do in Leipzig in late March.
I really try not to put bands up here just to rip on them, but these guys are ridiculous. On the other hand, they're so ridiculous that they're just a little bit aweseome. I feel like if I went drinking with the members of In Extremo, it would end poorly.
Here's their cover of "This Corrosion." If you thought the video for the original version was silly, which it was, you should probably be sitting down for this one.
The Competition
In the red corner, from Moscow, Russia, everyone's favourite schoolgirl faux-lesbians, TATUUUUU!
I don't really feel like I need to give a backgrounder on tATu to anyone. There's not really much to say.
Back around the turn of the millennium, two 16 year-old-girls from Russia released an album of strange dance music in phonetically sung English. This was fairly unremarkable, in fact, the Romanian group Cheeky Girls did pretty much the exact same thing at the exact same time. What differentiated these two girls, known collectively as tATu and individually as Lena and Yulia, was that they were a lesbian couple.
Several things happened as a result of their declaration of sapphic love.
One, men around the world got erections.
Two, the sold a boatload of records.
Three, the Religious Right got very upset and condemned tATu as part of the gay agenda.
Four, some gay groups pointed out that while there was a lot of hand holding and caressing, it never seemed to go any further, and that it was possible that Lena and Yulia weren't lesbians at all, and that this was all a giant publicity stunt.
As it turned out, the gay naysayers were right. At the height of their fame, Yulia got pregnant. Shockingly, Lena wasn't the father. The girl's were forced to come clean and admit that they weren't lesbians, they hadn't been ostracized by their families due to the love that dare not speak its name, and that the whole thing was thought up by child psychologist-turned-post-Communist Maurice Starr Ivan Shapovalov.
A few interesting facts about tATu.
They represented Russia in the 2003 Eurovision song contest.
The ditched Shapovalov in 2004, saying he was more interested in manufacturing scandal than in helping them pursue their artistic vision.
They still exist, and are apparently continue to sell records in Russia.
Here's their cover of The Smith's "How Soon is Now?" Morrissey called their version of the song "magnificent" in an interview with the UK's Word magazine.
Comment to post, since I'm late getting this thing up. I'll extend the deadline to midnight on Saturday.
This is a rematch, sort of.
I found really questionable covers of both bands' songs and have decided to put those videos into the ring. Why? Because I couldn't think of a better battle for this week and both videos are fucking hilarious.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Berlin, Germany, a band that has produced what may be the most fuckdickulous video in the history of music videos, IN EXTREMO.
In Extremo were founded in 1995 when two separate bands, a Rammstein-esque Krautrock act called Noah invited a group of neo-medieval folk musicians called Corvus Corax on stage for horribly ill-conceived jam session.
After the session, they were so pleased that Noah vocalist Michael Rhein suggested they make it a permanent arrangement, creating the world's first industrial band to feature lutes, bagpipes and something called a schawn. All seven of the band members took on ridiculous pseudonyms, Rhein dubbed himself "The Last Unicorn," and they decided to go by the collective moniker In Extremo. (It's Latin for In the Extreme.)
According to the band's MySpace, they played their first gig as In Extremo on March 29, 1997 in front of 1,000 people at the Leipzig Town Hall Market. Apparently there's not a lot to do in Leipzig in late March.
I really try not to put bands up here just to rip on them, but these guys are ridiculous. On the other hand, they're so ridiculous that they're just a little bit aweseome. I feel like if I went drinking with the members of In Extremo, it would end poorly.
Here's their cover of "This Corrosion." If you thought the video for the original version was silly, which it was, you should probably be sitting down for this one.
The Competition
In the red corner, from Moscow, Russia, everyone's favourite schoolgirl faux-lesbians, TATUUUUU!
I don't really feel like I need to give a backgrounder on tATu to anyone. There's not really much to say.
Back around the turn of the millennium, two 16 year-old-girls from Russia released an album of strange dance music in phonetically sung English. This was fairly unremarkable, in fact, the Romanian group Cheeky Girls did pretty much the exact same thing at the exact same time. What differentiated these two girls, known collectively as tATu and individually as Lena and Yulia, was that they were a lesbian couple.
Several things happened as a result of their declaration of sapphic love.
One, men around the world got erections.
Two, the sold a boatload of records.
Three, the Religious Right got very upset and condemned tATu as part of the gay agenda.
Four, some gay groups pointed out that while there was a lot of hand holding and caressing, it never seemed to go any further, and that it was possible that Lena and Yulia weren't lesbians at all, and that this was all a giant publicity stunt.
As it turned out, the gay naysayers were right. At the height of their fame, Yulia got pregnant. Shockingly, Lena wasn't the father. The girl's were forced to come clean and admit that they weren't lesbians, they hadn't been ostracized by their families due to the love that dare not speak its name, and that the whole thing was thought up by child psychologist-turned-post-Communist Maurice Starr Ivan Shapovalov.
A few interesting facts about tATu.
They represented Russia in the 2003 Eurovision song contest.
The ditched Shapovalov in 2004, saying he was more interested in manufacturing scandal than in helping them pursue their artistic vision.
They still exist, and are apparently continue to sell records in Russia.
Here's their cover of The Smith's "How Soon is Now?" Morrissey called their version of the song "magnificent" in an interview with the UK's Word magazine.
Comment to post, since I'm late getting this thing up. I'll extend the deadline to midnight on Saturday.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Apparently, She Wants to Win
Lil' Wayne's wealth distribution platform wasn't enough to win over the voting public, with the voting public choosing She Wants Revenge's brand of gothic creepiness 5 -1.
Since you liked it so much, here's a little more cinematic freakiness in the form of "These Things." It featured Shirley Manson. I want to fucking tear HER apart.
She Wants Revenge - These Thing
Uploaded by enkil_
As an aside, look what popped up when I put "She Wants Revenge" into Google Video.
Since you liked it so much, here's a little more cinematic freakiness in the form of "These Things." It featured Shirley Manson. I want to fucking tear HER apart.
She Wants Revenge - These Thing
Uploaded by enkil_
As an aside, look what popped up when I put "She Wants Revenge" into Google Video.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
I'm not sure how I feel about you: She Wants Revenge vs. Lil Wayne
For a minute there, I was worried that I might not post for two weeks running, effectively signaling the end of this blog. I was tremendously stuck for a topic and starting to worry that I'd used every idea I was ever going to have.
As always, my friends managed to save my ass without them even realizing.
Recently, I've been having a lot of conversations about acts that I'm having a little trouble admitting that I like.
With that in mind, I bring you MMV's tribute to ambiguity, Lil' Wayne vs. She Wants Revenge.
The Battle
In the red corner, from New Orleans, Louisiana, a man who's short in stature but a giant in syrup consumption, LIL WAYNE!
I work with a number of Lil' Wayne fans. Last month, while one of them was desperately trying to get tickets for his gig at Circa, which was subsequently canceled, I mentioned that I still wasn't completely sold on this "Lil' Wayne is good now" thing. They both had minor panic attacks, burned me a copy of Tha Carter 3, and pretty much refused to fuck off until I acknowledged Wayne's greatness.
I have to admit that the last two Wayne albums are pretty impressive, but I still have major issues with anyone who claims to be "The Greatest Rapper Alive" and isn't named Jay-Z. I also have a tough time looking at Wayne and not thinking of the guy who got the throwaway verses on The Hot Boys albums.
I was in Grade 12 when the single "Bling Bling" came out. "Bling Bling" may be one of my least favourite songs ever. Not only did it introduce the phrase "Bling Bling" into wider society, to the point that my dad now uses it, it also featured such lyrical gems as "Hear my cell phone ring/bling bling bling/see my earrings from a mile/bling bling." As someone who's a lyrically-minded hip-hop fan, this song was like a kick in the balls to me.
Dwayne Carter was grew up in New Orleans' Hollygrove neighbourhood. Like me, he was a gifted kid in elementary school. Unlike me, he dropped out of school at age 14 to join The Hot Boys and once accidentally shot himself with a high-powered handgun. Earlier this year, he was arrested in Arizona with a fantastic quantity of drugs.
Although Carter found fame as a rapper starting at the age of 16, he wasn't really taken seriously as an MC until he made a major comeback as a mixtape MC in his mid-20s, when he was so good that critics gushed all over his new albums, Tha Carter one through three, and were remarkably willing to overlook his past indiscretions.
Wayne and Julez Santana are working on a project called I Can't Feel My Face, bits of which have already been leaked on the Internet.
This is the video for "Got Money" with T-Pain and Mack Maine.
The Opponents
In the blue corner, from The San Fernando Valley, California, a group who's name bugs me, SHE WANTS REVENGE!
I don't know nearly as much about She Wants Revenge as I do about Lil' Wayne. I know they're from California. I know that frontman Justin Warfield used to be a rapper and released an album that was produced by QDIII (Quincy Jones' son) and Prince Paul. I know that Justin Warfield looks strangely like a biracial goth Paul Giamatti. That's about it.
Oh, and I know that they make awesome, creepy, cinematic videos.
The reason it took me two years and two-and-half albums to warm up to Revenge is pretty simple. Their name, album art and overall image convinced me that this was a band for 15 year-old girls, and the number of 15 year-old girls wearing their t-shirts did very little to change that impression.
My slow conversion began about a year ago when I was at a club for my buddy Shaan's birthday. It may have been the bad draft, but there was something about Revenge's hit "Tear You Apart" that absolutely blew my mind. Subsequent sober listenings have had the same effect.
That said, I still can't get it out of my head that revenge are a sadcore band for little girls. Here's the video for "Tear You Apart."
Comment to vote, votes due by Friday at midnight.
As always, my friends managed to save my ass without them even realizing.
Recently, I've been having a lot of conversations about acts that I'm having a little trouble admitting that I like.
With that in mind, I bring you MMV's tribute to ambiguity, Lil' Wayne vs. She Wants Revenge.
The Battle
In the red corner, from New Orleans, Louisiana, a man who's short in stature but a giant in syrup consumption, LIL WAYNE!
I work with a number of Lil' Wayne fans. Last month, while one of them was desperately trying to get tickets for his gig at Circa, which was subsequently canceled, I mentioned that I still wasn't completely sold on this "Lil' Wayne is good now" thing. They both had minor panic attacks, burned me a copy of Tha Carter 3, and pretty much refused to fuck off until I acknowledged Wayne's greatness.
I have to admit that the last two Wayne albums are pretty impressive, but I still have major issues with anyone who claims to be "The Greatest Rapper Alive" and isn't named Jay-Z. I also have a tough time looking at Wayne and not thinking of the guy who got the throwaway verses on The Hot Boys albums.
I was in Grade 12 when the single "Bling Bling" came out. "Bling Bling" may be one of my least favourite songs ever. Not only did it introduce the phrase "Bling Bling" into wider society, to the point that my dad now uses it, it also featured such lyrical gems as "Hear my cell phone ring/bling bling bling/see my earrings from a mile/bling bling." As someone who's a lyrically-minded hip-hop fan, this song was like a kick in the balls to me.
Dwayne Carter was grew up in New Orleans' Hollygrove neighbourhood. Like me, he was a gifted kid in elementary school. Unlike me, he dropped out of school at age 14 to join The Hot Boys and once accidentally shot himself with a high-powered handgun. Earlier this year, he was arrested in Arizona with a fantastic quantity of drugs.
Although Carter found fame as a rapper starting at the age of 16, he wasn't really taken seriously as an MC until he made a major comeback as a mixtape MC in his mid-20s, when he was so good that critics gushed all over his new albums, Tha Carter one through three, and were remarkably willing to overlook his past indiscretions.
Wayne and Julez Santana are working on a project called I Can't Feel My Face, bits of which have already been leaked on the Internet.
This is the video for "Got Money" with T-Pain and Mack Maine.
The Opponents
In the blue corner, from The San Fernando Valley, California, a group who's name bugs me, SHE WANTS REVENGE!
I don't know nearly as much about She Wants Revenge as I do about Lil' Wayne. I know they're from California. I know that frontman Justin Warfield used to be a rapper and released an album that was produced by QDIII (Quincy Jones' son) and Prince Paul. I know that Justin Warfield looks strangely like a biracial goth Paul Giamatti. That's about it.
Oh, and I know that they make awesome, creepy, cinematic videos.
The reason it took me two years and two-and-half albums to warm up to Revenge is pretty simple. Their name, album art and overall image convinced me that this was a band for 15 year-old girls, and the number of 15 year-old girls wearing their t-shirts did very little to change that impression.
My slow conversion began about a year ago when I was at a club for my buddy Shaan's birthday. It may have been the bad draft, but there was something about Revenge's hit "Tear You Apart" that absolutely blew my mind. Subsequent sober listenings have had the same effect.
That said, I still can't get it out of my head that revenge are a sadcore band for little girls. Here's the video for "Tear You Apart."
Comment to vote, votes due by Friday at midnight.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
English Bands Loved by People Who Had a Tough Time in High School: The Smiths vs. Sisters of Mercy
High school wasn't brutal torture for me.
Apart from the usual adolescent dramas and a really odd bit of Grade 11, I had a pretty good time. I went to a lot of park parties (the urban equivalent of bush parties, for those of you who didn't grow up in GTA), had a couple pretty decent teachers, managed to lose my virginity before heading off to university and had a decent supply of dope. On the other hand, I spent most of my high school career so stoned I didn't know where the fuck I was, so my memories may not be totally accurate.
That said, I did get my ass kicked a bunch of times over being "different" or "mouthy," did poorly with girls, had bad acne and greasy hair, spent the first half of my teens really skinny, then got really fat overnight. I figure that gives me as much claim to a harsh adolescence as any other middle-class white kid.
People who had a "hard time" in high school -- by which I mean most people who didn't play football but weren't gang bangers or huge ginos -- almost inevitably liked mopey English bands from the 1980s. Even when I went to school in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a strong contingent of cats who were moping around in mod-style army parkas, trying to look as disaffected as humanly possible while smoking Dunhills and John Player's Special, feeling like every word out of Morrissey's mouth was about them.
This is for them.
Before I get down to the heavy shit, I feel the need to explain my choice of bands. The Smiths are both the mopiest and Englishist of the mopey English bands. It would be hard to argue their presence here. The Sisters require a little explaining. The Cure would probably be The Smiths' natural opponents here. Morrissey and Robert Smith are one and one-a to depressed teens. And there may one day be a battle where The Smiths and The Cure go mano a mano, as much as that's possible for bands fronted by two supremely androgynous dudes. For this week, it had to be the Sisters for two reasons: one, my boy Shaan got hella excited when I mentioned the prospect of this battle and two, the video for "This Corrosion" is so above and beyond that it has to be recognized here.
The Main Event
In the Red Corner, from Hulme, Manchester, England, with disaffection factor of a sexual identity crisis, THE SMITHS!
Pretty much the entire world more or less knows the story of The Smiths. They were founded in 1982 by Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr, they became tremendously popular in the UK and Ireland and developed an almost obsessive cult following in Canada and the US. In 1987 they broke up, in part because Marr got sick of Morrissey's obsession with '60s pop and in part because Morrissey has an ego so large he needs a fleet of tractor trailers -- or lorries, as they say in England -- to haul it around.
Here's some lesser known facts about Morrissey, which I gleaned from Wikipedia and True to You, an online Morrissey fanzine.
1) He was saved from bullying as a child because he was a pretty decent athlete, something I'm sure his hardcore fans have a hard time dealing with.
2) He was briefly the lead vocalist of Slaughter and the Dogs, which blows my mind.
3) He regularly wrote very opinionated letters to Melody Maker and New Musical Express before he was famous.
4) He's still not officially gay, which also blows my mind.
When I was in Grade 10 and 11, I loved the shit out of The Smiths. They were the only "soft sounding" band I would let interrupt a personal playlist that was dominated by Rancid, The Wu-Tang Clan and TSOL. I was impressed that there was a band who could take a song about going to the fair and make it depressing as shit. ("Rusholme Ruffians," for those of you who don't know.) The sad cow sounds in the background on "Meat is Murder" convinced me to try and go vegetarian. I failed, but at least I know the sweet tasteless taste of soy.
My absolute favourite Smiths album was, and still is, Strangeways, Here We Come. Strangeways was the only Smiths album that British music critics didn't like, and was produced when the tensions between Morrissey and Marr were at their highest. The band actually broke up before the album came out, and Morrissey apparently recorded most of the vocals in the booth by himself, after Marr et al had already laid down the instrumental tracks in another session.
This is the video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before." This song was only released as a single outside of the British Isles. The label felt that releasing a single that references mass murder only a couple months after the Hungerford Massacre, one of the worst mass murders in modern British history was a bad move. On one hand, I sort of think the label pussied out on this one. On the other hand, you'd have to think sales would have been pretty soft given the timing. As a result, the footage for the "Stop Me" video was also used in the British video for "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish," which was released instead of "Stop Me."
A couple more observations here. One, how is Morrissey not openly 100% gay? His bike has a wicker basket for Christ sakes. Two, guys who rock the Morrissey look look like dorks. (I know, I tried to pull this off for a bit.) Girls who rock the Morrissey look are strangely attractive.
OK, now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Leeds, England, with a disaffection factor of being hailed as the founding father(s) of modern goth music, The SIS-TERRRS of MERRRR-CY!
The Sisters of Mercy aren't so much a band as one guy, a rotating cast of other people, and a drum machine/musical version of Dr. Who's robot dog named Doktor Avalanche and the Chorus of Vengance.
The one guy is Andrew Eldritch, lead vocalist, drum programmer and allegedly a very difficult guy. I say allegedly because I've never met the man and I don't want to get sued. He could be very nice. However, the fact that every Sisters album had a different line-up, with Eldritch and the machine Avalanche being the only points of the continuity, indicates that he might be a little hard to get along with. His legions of former bandmates have also made loud, public statements to this effect.
The Sisters were formed in 1980 and went "on strike" in 1994 after Eldritch got in a fight with the band's label over money. The "band" -- read, Eldritch and whoever else was willing to hang out with him -- starting performing again in 1996, but have yet to release an album of new material.
The Sisters are important for two reasons. One, they're credit with influencing every goth band since. Eldritch hates being called goth. He claims he was pigeonholed after experimenting with goofy clothes for a couple weeks. While that may or may not be the case, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for The Sisters, we wouldn't have legions of black-clad bands with electronic drums and deep, monotonous vocals. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on where you stand. I also firmly believe that Eldritch's insistence that he's not a goth makes him the gothest dude of all time. If there's one thing goths and hipsters have in common, it's that the more you deny being one, the more likely it is that you are.
Two, they were involved in one of the ugliest legal battles in rock history. Two Sisters cast-offs -- original bassist Craig Adams and former Dead or Alive member Wayne Hussey -- started gigging as The Sisterhood in the mid-80s, playing songs that had been vetoed by Eldritch. Eldritch claimed the name was too close and responded with a resounding "fuck you." He started a side-project of his own, also called The Sisterhood, and sued the hell out of everything that moved. The two sides eventually settled when Hussey and Adams changed the name of their band to The Mission, who were also hugely influential in the goth-rock scene. Spike wore a Mission t-shirt in several episodes of Degrassi.
This is the video for "This Corrosion" off the album Floodland. This song came out at the peak of The Sisters commercial success. It's rumoured to be a sort of goth diss-track aimed at Hussey and Adams. If that's the case, goths are really horrible at insulting people, because the lyrics make almost no sense. The Eldritch and the Doktor were the only official members of the band for this album, but American bassist Patricia Morrison (formerly of The Bags and The Gun Club and a co-conspirator Eldritch's version of The Sisterhood) was brought on for live performances.
This is another video where I don't want to say too much about it because it's just so out of hand. Every time I watch it I feel like I'm watching someone try and stage Cats, Les Mis and a musical adaption of Mad Max on the same stage at the same time.
For those of you who are still unclear, comment to vote. The future of democracy depends on you.
Apart from the usual adolescent dramas and a really odd bit of Grade 11, I had a pretty good time. I went to a lot of park parties (the urban equivalent of bush parties, for those of you who didn't grow up in GTA), had a couple pretty decent teachers, managed to lose my virginity before heading off to university and had a decent supply of dope. On the other hand, I spent most of my high school career so stoned I didn't know where the fuck I was, so my memories may not be totally accurate.
That said, I did get my ass kicked a bunch of times over being "different" or "mouthy," did poorly with girls, had bad acne and greasy hair, spent the first half of my teens really skinny, then got really fat overnight. I figure that gives me as much claim to a harsh adolescence as any other middle-class white kid.
People who had a "hard time" in high school -- by which I mean most people who didn't play football but weren't gang bangers or huge ginos -- almost inevitably liked mopey English bands from the 1980s. Even when I went to school in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a strong contingent of cats who were moping around in mod-style army parkas, trying to look as disaffected as humanly possible while smoking Dunhills and John Player's Special, feeling like every word out of Morrissey's mouth was about them.
This is for them.
Before I get down to the heavy shit, I feel the need to explain my choice of bands. The Smiths are both the mopiest and Englishist of the mopey English bands. It would be hard to argue their presence here. The Sisters require a little explaining. The Cure would probably be The Smiths' natural opponents here. Morrissey and Robert Smith are one and one-a to depressed teens. And there may one day be a battle where The Smiths and The Cure go mano a mano, as much as that's possible for bands fronted by two supremely androgynous dudes. For this week, it had to be the Sisters for two reasons: one, my boy Shaan got hella excited when I mentioned the prospect of this battle and two, the video for "This Corrosion" is so above and beyond that it has to be recognized here.
The Main Event
In the Red Corner, from Hulme, Manchester, England, with disaffection factor of a sexual identity crisis, THE SMITHS!
Pretty much the entire world more or less knows the story of The Smiths. They were founded in 1982 by Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr, they became tremendously popular in the UK and Ireland and developed an almost obsessive cult following in Canada and the US. In 1987 they broke up, in part because Marr got sick of Morrissey's obsession with '60s pop and in part because Morrissey has an ego so large he needs a fleet of tractor trailers -- or lorries, as they say in England -- to haul it around.
Here's some lesser known facts about Morrissey, which I gleaned from Wikipedia and True to You, an online Morrissey fanzine.
1) He was saved from bullying as a child because he was a pretty decent athlete, something I'm sure his hardcore fans have a hard time dealing with.
2) He was briefly the lead vocalist of Slaughter and the Dogs, which blows my mind.
3) He regularly wrote very opinionated letters to Melody Maker and New Musical Express before he was famous.
4) He's still not officially gay, which also blows my mind.
When I was in Grade 10 and 11, I loved the shit out of The Smiths. They were the only "soft sounding" band I would let interrupt a personal playlist that was dominated by Rancid, The Wu-Tang Clan and TSOL. I was impressed that there was a band who could take a song about going to the fair and make it depressing as shit. ("Rusholme Ruffians," for those of you who don't know.) The sad cow sounds in the background on "Meat is Murder" convinced me to try and go vegetarian. I failed, but at least I know the sweet tasteless taste of soy.
My absolute favourite Smiths album was, and still is, Strangeways, Here We Come. Strangeways was the only Smiths album that British music critics didn't like, and was produced when the tensions between Morrissey and Marr were at their highest. The band actually broke up before the album came out, and Morrissey apparently recorded most of the vocals in the booth by himself, after Marr et al had already laid down the instrumental tracks in another session.
This is the video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before." This song was only released as a single outside of the British Isles. The label felt that releasing a single that references mass murder only a couple months after the Hungerford Massacre, one of the worst mass murders in modern British history was a bad move. On one hand, I sort of think the label pussied out on this one. On the other hand, you'd have to think sales would have been pretty soft given the timing. As a result, the footage for the "Stop Me" video was also used in the British video for "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish," which was released instead of "Stop Me."
A couple more observations here. One, how is Morrissey not openly 100% gay? His bike has a wicker basket for Christ sakes. Two, guys who rock the Morrissey look look like dorks. (I know, I tried to pull this off for a bit.) Girls who rock the Morrissey look are strangely attractive.
OK, now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Leeds, England, with a disaffection factor of being hailed as the founding father(s) of modern goth music, The SIS-TERRRS of MERRRR-CY!
The Sisters of Mercy aren't so much a band as one guy, a rotating cast of other people, and a drum machine/musical version of Dr. Who's robot dog named Doktor Avalanche and the Chorus of Vengance.
The one guy is Andrew Eldritch, lead vocalist, drum programmer and allegedly a very difficult guy. I say allegedly because I've never met the man and I don't want to get sued. He could be very nice. However, the fact that every Sisters album had a different line-up, with Eldritch and the machine Avalanche being the only points of the continuity, indicates that he might be a little hard to get along with. His legions of former bandmates have also made loud, public statements to this effect.
The Sisters were formed in 1980 and went "on strike" in 1994 after Eldritch got in a fight with the band's label over money. The "band" -- read, Eldritch and whoever else was willing to hang out with him -- starting performing again in 1996, but have yet to release an album of new material.
The Sisters are important for two reasons. One, they're credit with influencing every goth band since. Eldritch hates being called goth. He claims he was pigeonholed after experimenting with goofy clothes for a couple weeks. While that may or may not be the case, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for The Sisters, we wouldn't have legions of black-clad bands with electronic drums and deep, monotonous vocals. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on where you stand. I also firmly believe that Eldritch's insistence that he's not a goth makes him the gothest dude of all time. If there's one thing goths and hipsters have in common, it's that the more you deny being one, the more likely it is that you are.
Two, they were involved in one of the ugliest legal battles in rock history. Two Sisters cast-offs -- original bassist Craig Adams and former Dead or Alive member Wayne Hussey -- started gigging as The Sisterhood in the mid-80s, playing songs that had been vetoed by Eldritch. Eldritch claimed the name was too close and responded with a resounding "fuck you." He started a side-project of his own, also called The Sisterhood, and sued the hell out of everything that moved. The two sides eventually settled when Hussey and Adams changed the name of their band to The Mission, who were also hugely influential in the goth-rock scene. Spike wore a Mission t-shirt in several episodes of Degrassi.
This is the video for "This Corrosion" off the album Floodland. This song came out at the peak of The Sisters commercial success. It's rumoured to be a sort of goth diss-track aimed at Hussey and Adams. If that's the case, goths are really horrible at insulting people, because the lyrics make almost no sense. The Eldritch and the Doktor were the only official members of the band for this album, but American bassist Patricia Morrison (formerly of The Bags and The Gun Club and a co-conspirator Eldritch's version of The Sisterhood) was brought on for live performances.
This is another video where I don't want to say too much about it because it's just so out of hand. Every time I watch it I feel like I'm watching someone try and stage Cats, Les Mis and a musical adaption of Mad Max on the same stage at the same time.
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