Sunday, February 22, 2009

GLENN DANZIG “Black Aria II”

GLENN DANZIG
“Black Aria II”
(Evilive/Megaforce) 


This was worth the wait. Glenn Danzig’s second part of Alternative History of Theology through dark ambient sounds is ready for your sinful eardrums. Sporting the unglodly sexy cover from Bill Senkiewicz (Wolverine, New Mutants etc) this is one ritual thingie filled with more voodoo like drums , tons of more eastern mysticism aura , and ,yes, agonizing fem vox . There’s also the appropriate Danzig-geek little present on that “Abbandonment/Recreation”,track. Don’t wanna spoil this for you but ,fuckitall, I will. Glenn takes the old “whooo-aap” backing vocal track from Samhain’s “Halloween II” and places it in the midst of ritual drums and phantom-like polyphonies,composing one of his most chill-you-shitless moments ever to haunt the stereo since “Misery Tomb”. The rest is mute and dominated by church organ synth.All in all this is another case of Glenn dropping off ghis guitar and mic , sitting on the piano and giving you one more real reason to realise the futility of existence. “Black Aria II” ain’t no party music guys, gals and ghouls! 

Tsamashi ToYo 

THE SENSATIONAL GUITARS OF DAN AND DALE “Batman And Robin”

THE SENSATIONAL GUITARS OF DAN AND DALE
“Batman And Robin”
(Tifton/Universe Records) 


Be it the 1939 Kane/Finger originals , the 70’s Englehart/Wein darker-shades, the 80’s Miller epics or the campy 60’s TV show with Adam West ,you just gotta loooove The Batman! I mean, what other millionare playboy-by-day would risk his non-superpowered ass for you by night in the grim and gritty streets of Gotham City? That’s right. None. This is a freejazz take on the original Neil Hefti music for the popular 1966 TV series. So hold on to your Bat-Shark-Repellents and take a joyride on the Batmobile with this jazz/funk trip down crime alley .And ,lo, check out who’s on the steering wheel: Sun Ra and his Arkestra! What’s that you say? Who’s “Dan And Dale?”? Well ,kids ,this ain’t no other than Sun Ra’s secret identity especially tagged for this release.There’s a lot of the occasional Link Wrayish garage-surf guitar rumble on this one for you to feast on, plus some pretty darn gospel like vocals by some (uncredited) gal somewhere. If any o’you were startled by Al Hirt’s “Green Hornet” craze being brought back on the “Kill Bill” compi-soundtrack , this is your one and only chance to do the Batusie just like your momma would back in the 60’s.Holy revivals ,Robin! 

Tsamashi ToYo 2009


DIRECTOR'S GUT

Hail!

Once upon a time (ie. approximately four years ago, on the year of our lord 2004) there was a bunch of friends. Some of us were bandmates, others co-editors at Metal Hammer Greece, all of us comrades. We have joined forces in order to produce a different kind of webzine. The idea was while keeping a focus on underground music to be open-minded, cover all sorts of art forms while maintaining social/technical/scientific/spiritual sensitivities. The project was appropriately baptized in blood TIGER TELEVISION by Tsamashi Toyo who also designed the logo. I was the self-assigned chief editor - to be honnest this is something I had missed since the CHAOTIK WEBZINE days… We started rounding up material and were quite excited about how things seemed to turn out. Eventually, for a variety of reasons the operation was aborted.

A month ago I was browsing across my hard disks and came across the material I had collected from the team. I thought it was a fucking pity to let it buried and forgotten. I discussed a little bit with Mantas and started posting some of this stuff at my blog. Yet it wasn’t enough. The idea of reviving the fucker was around the corner. The choice of the blogzine format was obvious in order to be fast & flexible, as well as in order to avoid the time overhead a proper website administration demands (and to be honest, we could think of nobody for the job). Initially we thought about going with the Wordpress format. While it is not rocket science I was familiar with blogspot and just wanted to start put things together asap. Plus I’m an old-school type of guy and like minimal, 90’s-like visuals. So here you go buddy!

Let me clarify that we are pretty much focused on quality rather than quanitity, value rather than volume. With the internet era access to information is no longer the issue, rather sorting out the mess. We want to propose select analysis and pointers to quality art, culture and aesthetics. We will do it at our own pace, without stress or deadlines whatsoever. Plus the whole thing is a goddamn time machine! You see some us, as I’ve already mentionned, are senior editors at Metal Hammer Greece. We all have at our bunkers source material for interview features that were published (or sometimes not) in greek language. We all felt it was a petty we couldn’t share this stuff with our friends outside the borders. TIGER TELEVISION is our way to get over with it. All hailz to the magazine’s direction for letting us use it. But please do not mistakenly consider TIGER TELEVISION as a sort of Metal-Hammer-leftovers kind of thing. A quick visit will convince you otherwise anyways… Please also notice, that most of us have musical projects. We will promote them here. If we don’t, who else will? 
Last but not least, in exchange of our generous offer we just demand three things: a) pimp T.T.V. by linking to us, b) do not reproduce our material without quoting the source and providing a link, c) in this kind of business it is cruel to walk the way without feedback from the recipient, so please comment the posts or send us emails/whatever. Thanx!

OK, make yourself a home and do not hesitate to push the button if we can do something to make your stay more pleasant!


Panos Agoros, on behalf of the TIGER TELEVISION team.