(Not Very) New Lows

In 2009 I had this plan to do a blog where I just interviewed artists about hardcore shirts they'd illustrated. I did like 3 entries and then stopped keeping up with it, but anyway. Here's one of the interviews I did with Chris Morgado about the best New Lows shirts. Remember, this is from 2009 so some elements might not be accurate anymore. 

The Wrong Side is one of my favorite hardcore bands, and I was even more stoked to find out that the singer, Chris Morgado was into drawing so I hunted him down. He's the artist behind a number of cool hardcore shirts, many of them I had before I even knew that he'd done them. I've done a sweet interview with him that'll definitely appear in a future issue of Drug Dogs. Anyway, the following is a discussion on the New Lows shirt above in Morgado's own words.

"I kind of hate to do shirt designs. It's sort of awkward, like layout wise I find it awkward. I never know just how big I can go or anything, and so I end up feeling like I'm doing the same big image with band name over/under it thing over and over. I vastly prefer doing fliers and record art…fliers especially, fliers are my absolute favorite to do…it's just less stressful knowing "ok, this is the space I've got, this is what I can work with, now fill it". And most of the time people don't really know exactly what they want, like I get told "we want something like what you did for Mental so just come up with something like what you did for them", which isn't the worst thing to get told by any stretch of the imagination, but it's kind of more stressful because even though I can do that kind of thing standing on my head, I have to worry about copying what I already did without actually repeating what I already did."

"A skinhead with a chain by me is going to look like a skinhead with a chain by me…well, more like it'll look like a poor copy of a skin by Sean Taggart (laughs)… no matter how I draw it; it's pretty much just asking me to swap out the band name. If that's really want someone wants, great, I'll do it, but it's cooler if someone has an idea that I can work with, or if it's a band 

with a name or a vibe that I can latch on to."

"Like War Hungry, yeah those shirts look like they could just as easily be Mental shirts, but they're actually very specific to that band, I came up with those by just doodling around with the name “WAR HUNGRY” and the images that put in my head. I never would have come up with those designs for Mental, those designs just wouldn't exist."

"With New Lows, I've done four shirts, and it's been 50/50 as to P-boy knowing what he wants and me just coming up with something on my own. The Shining shirt was his idea, and the Minor Threat  rip off. He left the details pretty much up to me so far as how to execute them, but those were both his idea. The Albert Packer shirt and the octopus sex shirt were mine. It was kind of a last minute deal, they needed some shirts for Sound and Fury and P wanted something new but didn't have any ideas on tap. So I kind of just brainstormed, just like... inserting random California and ocean related words into Google, and eventually I ended up googling octopus and just started thinking, "hardcore design concepts have gotten pretty tame, hardcore in general is pretty tame now, I wonder if an octopus porn shirt would get any reaction". So I started googling Japanese octopus porn and printing out pics that I thought would make good reference. This was all done at work, naturally. So I had all these print outs and I just started sketching shit out and seeing what I could combine with what, and one of the pics was by this artist Toshio Saeki, in fact if you look at my actual drawing, it says "with a nod to Saeki" under my signature, that's how much of his idea I felt like I actually took. It was a guy fucking a girl who was an octopus below the waist. I thought it would make a good shirt if you stripped it down to just the guy and the girl, maybe not as nuts as doing one of the ones where the octopus is tentacle fucking a girl but probably easier to make work on the front of a shirt. But I didn't want to just have it be a tracing or an exact copy. I had just done a drawing of Death smoking a bong for this band that never paid me or used the design, so I had that on my desk. So I redrew it with Death in the place of the guy, and a few drafts later I was satisfied enough to do a nice little bit of old school cut and paste…I do pretty much everything old school cut and paste…I only use Photoshop for minor touch ups like removing a line here or there to get the band name on there."

"What I was thinking of with the layout was this Fugazi bootleg shirt a kid I knew in high school had that just had the band name over a black and white photo, though when I was doing the shirt I was remembering it as being underneath."

Check out Morgado's art and NEW LOWS.

KNIGHTS IN SATAN'S SERVICE

"Knights in Satan's Service," is an Urban Legend lovingly acknowledged in the film Detroit Rock City, and also by a few prominent religious leaders (for a discussion of mormonism and 70's rock, check my old blog). Most anyone with a few braincells to mash together knows this legend to be false, that Paul Stanley named the band KISS in tribute to the New York Dolls and though they used the para-military Schutzstaffel to get some heat (Jewish rock boys from NYC) methinks this was really all just an aesthetic decision. I'm of the mind that 4 letter/one syllable is the perfect aesthetic for a band name (RUSH, CROM, etc) which is why I'm so jazzed my friends have a band called "CRUD" right now. Anyway, don't get me wrong: a bunch of weirdos in kabuki makeup singing about, you know...rockin, probably freaked out some 70's parents, but no way was this band really in league with satan.

Dylan Chadwick is a rock writer who tweets and Instagrams at @drugdogs. He snuck out with a friend in 2001 to see KISS and Ted Nugent at the Kentucky State Fair where he saw the Nuge shoot his guitar with a bow and arrow. 

E-town's Finest (Personal KISS-tories)

Like most of you, I grew up in boring suburban town. The only distinction is that Cameron Crowe has made a shitty movie about my boring suburban town (Elizabethtown) and he probably hasn't made one about yours. Me and my goofball friends used to struggle with stuff to do and so we'd get on the Elizabethtown Wikipedia page and invent "famous" celebrities from there, back in the era when you could do such things...only our celebrities weren't so famous. We tried to get a running joke that Eric Carr, 2nd KISS drummer was an OG E-towner but it never took. I don't know how in the blue hell we thought this would be a good or funny idea, but we did and here I am talking about it. We hadn't discovered drugs or vandalism?

It's Still Real to Me (Personal KISS-tories)

For those of your normies who didn't watch wrestling in the 90s (how did you avoid it?) The Monday Night Wars were essentially a ratings battle between the two pre-eminent wrestling promotions of the time, WWF and WCW, all trying to outdo each other's Monday Night programming with outlandish stunts and story lines. I shan't retread all of the gory details, as the WWE network has done a 750 part series charting the specifics, but basically, in an effort to thwart the competition, Eric Bischoff (WCW) tried to develop an entire stable of KISS-inspired wrestlers which would in turn, help establish both the brand and the band. The effort began with KISS playing a horribly lip-synced version of "God of Thunder" on what would turn out to be one of the keystone lowest rated episodes of Nitro, and debuted the "KISS Demon" character, played by Dale Torborg and later, Brian "Crash" Adams. (Side note: They didn't play anything from Psycho Circus which was still a semi recent release). Shame we never got a full KNIGHTS IN SATAN'S SERVICE wrestling stable. The fans would have LOVED that....Oh, spoiler alert: WCW went out of business.

Konosha Rock City (Personal KISS-tories)

No band from my "era" jumped the shark more deftly than Weezer. Two phenomenal albums, followed by one decent one, followed by 60 garbage ones that my little sister has probably heard more than me. Perhaps "nerd rock" tag is a bit staid now, but I have a whole mess of great memories playing A Link to the Past whilst listening to that Blue album over and over and over and over, my favorite tracks being "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" and of course the introvert's anthem "In the Garage."

I've got posters on my wall

my favorite rock group KISS

I've got Ace Frehley, I've got Peter Criss

Waiting there for me, yes I do.

I Love the fact that Cuomo's fav rock band is/was KISS and that he doesn't reference Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons. Straight up, Frehley is the man, and Gene Simmons and Donald Trump appear to be the same person.

One Man's Trash (Personal KISS-tories)

"If the Beatles wanted to be bigger than Jesus, KISS wanted to be bigger than Coca-Cola."
-Chuck Klosterman, a VH1 documentary I watched in high school. 

One man's trash: At an antique mall in Salt Lake City, I stumbled upon an entire chest full of KISS spiral bound notebooks, all dated from 1978, and containing sign up sheets for the KISS army. The cover reminded me of my own grade school years spent secretly carving Metallica logos into desks, while the inside contents (incoherent streams, personal journaling, grocery lists, biology notes and a movie script) all looped out pencil cursive reminded me of all the useless skills my middle school teachers INSISTED we'd need in the real world. I want to think this was all written by some mustachioed high school hesher, the kinda dude who bought Destroyer based on the cover art alone, and I'll stick to that. Maybe I just fetishize a bygone era when KISS was bigger than life and people still wrote in cursive. 

X-tra Hot Sauce

I’ve always been a mark for Howard Stern’s metal doppleganger Danny Lilker. I won’t show off my S.O.D, Nuclear Assault and (working on a) Brutal Truth collection here, but I’ve got one.

I’d heard of his pre-all of those bands Xtra Hot Sauce through the grapvine, but was finally pushed over the edge by my friend who described them as “S.O.D. igno meets NYC Mayhem wildness.” Tell me dear reader, wouldn’t that description get your ass in gear to check them out too? Here’s “Tony’s Dilemma” for reference. Lilker is a beast, a metal lifer who has officially retired from music. Big ups to the guy for leaving a cash cow to start a fledgling grind band and for being a part of Need to Control. Bummer/awesome that Metallica ended up stealing that one tiny “Godplayer” riff from ‘em.

Greetings and Felicitations Children of Technology

What was the first website you ever visited? Mine was majorleaguebaseball.com. It took 15 minutes for my brother and I to download a picture of Gary Sheffield which we printed out in an inkjet printer and hung on his door. In that regard, finding old websites made before the Squarespace era kind of reminds me of looking at zines.

Oftentimes they’re made lovingly by a fan, not a professional, and utilize primitive layout techniques, fonts (and color combinations) to convey a message. Here we have an incredible Carnivore fan site featuring an extensive fan bio, song lyrics, streaming songs (!) in the form of .WAV files and that phenomenal landing page. Big ups to the guy who made this and is keeping that domain going. “5 Billion Dead.”

An Ugly Metallica Shirt

I’ve an obsession with Metallica shirts and that extends to bootlegs. Here’s a nice amalgamation of their first 5 records, done up all-over-print style for people who are stuck in 2007 or just wanna be king of the trailer park. No judgment though. I’d wear this, as I dig graphic that just showcases a physical discography (see that one Lockin Out shirt that just has Revelation 1-10 on it). I found this on ETSY looking for quirky confectionaries to send as gifts to family members. 

It's Dangerous to Go Alone...Take This!

I had my first legit panic attack in 2005. No juicy details there, except it was terrifying and I was a college student. Rather than seek legitimate help though, I decided to buy a copy of the (then brand new) Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore and play my roommate’s NES. It’s an obsessive pattern I continued for a week, reading the book a chapter at a time, then listening to the albums discussed within while playing Contra or Faxanadu or WWF Superstars. I got better too. Like...I only had one more panic attack, 6 years later. Soon, I was conceptualizing death metal inspired NES games and making crude versions of them in MS-Paint. After trying to recreate the Realm of Chaos cover, I almost drove myself into another nervous breakdown and that’s when I decided I needed to get my ass back to class.

Here’s a relic from that weird time in my life, a recreation of Obituary’s Cause of Death on a 32x32 pixel board that I made on my phone.

Metal on the Morning Commute (Chips & Beer Magazine)

I lived in the UK from 1992-97, which is where I first encountered public transit. I liked watching the rolling hills fly by while my Mom, my brother and I trundled about Jolly Old. New York City is the first American city I’ve lived in where public transit is this ubiquitous though. There were buses in Los Angeles but when subject to the same freeways as everyone else, they’re no more efficient than just buying a bike and hoofing it your own way. I’ve come to appreciate the working people who slog through a long rail commute, day in and day out, knowing that at the end of their cramped and smelly ride lies an 8-hour slog through the workday blues.

I ride the NQ line most days, and don’t have much to complain about, though the other day I was delayed to and from work because of EMT’s removing a “sick customer” from the line. Many of you have heard the Invisibilia episode profiling this Twitter account which showcased the supposed horrors (fashion-related and non) of the N. This is a newsletter about my M-F commute, and the 7-8 stops from Astoria/Ditmars to Queensboro plaza in which I can get LTE signal to look up weird metal shit on the internet.

Chips & Beer magazine is the finest metal publication going, and I feel no hyperbole in making such a proclamation. Their obsessive attention to detail, phenomenal interviews and “themed issues” make this a rag full-on dripping with adoration and nerdery for this lil genre of ours. So far in their 8 issue legacy my favorite has been their Thin Lizzy issue, replete with interviews, nuggets and even a dissection of “Western Movies” (Spaghetti, domestic, that was meant to be a Motorhead reference) through the years. While I particularly enjoyed the interview with Jim Fitzpatrick (the guy who actually made the Che Guevara image so iconic), a tiny nugget in the Eric Bell interview stopped me in my (no train pun intended) tracks.

Eric Bell: I’d had a few pints of Guinness and a few smokes, and I was just flipping through the channels and I saw this band on stage at this festival and I went “Who the fuck is this?!” I couldn’t believe it. It was a band called Slipknot. You know the guys with the masks? They blew me away completely and utterly off the planet. I couldn’t believe it, and I taped it and I still watch it about three times a week. A song they do called “Duality.” -Chips and Beer #7

Three times a week? Far be it from me to judge. The dude played in the earliest incarnations of lizzy. I guess Slipknot just hit me at a time where I’d completely fazed out of FM radio rock, and the occasional glimpses I would get (including the “duality” video) were so laden in tuneless staccato to just leave me feelin...limp? I’m sure some boner blog rock critic will rewrite history in a few years, equating Slipknot to some kind of cultural mega-importance. It’s just how it goes. Even the aged rockers are more in tune than me.

Karp - "Bacon Industry"

AC/DC - "Night Prowler"

Tonight, we have a chance to say, 'Yeah, you're right. We're too extreme. We're too wild. We're too out of control. We're too full of our own shit.' Or we have a chance to say, 'Hey, fuck you, you're wrong! Fuck you, we're right!' Because you have all made it to the dance. 'Cause believe me, this is the dance! - Paul E. 

The Obsessed - "Tombstone Highway"

"I'm going to make you beg. You're going to get down on your hands and knees. You will be the one that grovels for the money. And how appropriate... that the money you grovel for is your very own. Wallowing in the muck of avarice."

-Jake Roberts

Death - "God of Thunder"

"Ladies and gentlemen, the debut of a brand new wrestler. From KISS, THE KISS, is right upon us. THE KISS will be performing live, on that stage, in just a few moments on what has been a memorable night. I think Hulk Hogan was right in saying Sting deserves another shot at the world title. And now we go to this. On a personal note, I'm getting ready to say the words I've always wanted  to say, since I first heard this group back in 1976: YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU GOT THE BEST. THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE LAND: KISS DEATH!" -Tony Schiavone, 1999

All the Nation's Record Stores

Before business school, kids and management positions, my dad worked at a record store. Kinda. The Record Bar was a chain store (probably similar to Tower) that went tits up sometime in the late 80s. He doesn't talk about it too much, except in reference to his co-worker who listened to Toto, and that he once bought Bad Brains' Rock for Light LP based on critical acclaim and (I'm assuming) Ric Ocasek's involvement, only to discover "a record he didn't really enjoy." We cannot all have punk dads.

No one told me Record Store Day was becoming a bi-annual thing, so I didn't make it to any in-stores, but my good friend flipped a Cake box-set for $450. Does that seem insane to you? It should. I'm also told that Guardians of the Galaxy LPs a) exist and b) went for gaga on the 'Bay. For finances and my own sanity, I've mostly stopped collecting records, but that's not to say I never dabbled. Here's a few of the shops that have managed to keep Nick Hornby stereotypes alive in my mind and gobble up my paychecks over the years.

1) The Greater Trader (Elizabethtown, KY). Not a "record store" by any definition, but a used video game store that also sold CDs at $2 a pop. I bet 75% of my initial CD collection came from this store alone, and all of it second-tier grunge and radio rock at that. I was 12 in 1999, still 2 years from discovering hardcore, and for a middle school hesher's musical paradigm that didn't extend far beyond White Zombie, this place hit every entry-level base—Abba to Zeppelin, Alice in Chains to Everything Zen. My aforementioned friend even accidentally bought Stone Temple Pilots Core there, since they had a song titled "Creep" and he'd recently become enamored with the Radiohead track of the same name. HIGH-larious. They closed their doors once middle schoolers discovered KaZaA, but with the cyclical popularity of "soft grunge" I'd say these types of proletariat ventures are due for a comeback. 

2) Avatar Records (Radcliff, KY): In its heyday, the Radcliff skatepark served as an open-air dirt-weed market, tucked behind some shoddy purple skate ramps, an army recruitment office and Avatar Records. The store itself was a local institution on its last legs in the mid 00s, operated by a charismatic long-distance runner and Iron Maiden enthusiast Raymond Dowdell Jr. Of note, it's the only place I knew to find Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles magazine and sported an amazing Harmony Corruption era Napalm Death promo poster in the back. I never found anything truly incredible here, and would mostly just pick around the dollar bin in between trying to learn tre-flips (never happened), but I felt good about having him special order the Gray Matter Thog album for me once. Dowdell passed away in 2009 (some reports say he was clutching a CD when it happened) which met an outpouring of community support, singing praises of a kind, music-obsessive metal head who kept the store afloat for 20 years. It pains me that my children may grow up in a world in which these kinds of 80s stereotypes are the stuff of fiction, but am grateful I got to meet the man in person.

3) Dark Realm (Downey, CA): Downey California was the childhood stomping grounds of one James Hetfield, but Dark Realm records is the L.A. suburbs premiere metal contribution to the world. Perhaps a "death metal for death metal" record store is a bit "niche" in 2014, but a straight-up pseudo-satanic coven with blacked-out windows and Seven Churches roaring through its PA is a place that begs for my music-buying dollar...and if you're not down with shelling $26 for a Bolt Thrower 180-gram reissue, "the wall of long sleeves" is worth your patronage alone. I have a picture of me hanging out here, dressed in full-on Mormon missionary regalia, with Bay Cortez of Sadistic Intent—but I don't wanna blow my full load on just one newsletter.

4) Raunch Pt. 2 [Salt Lake City, UT]: The city's pre-eminent "punk" record store was already famous the first go around for being one of the first/only places to distribute the Underdog 7" (back in the day). When it rebooted in 2009, I found the Right Brigade 7" there along with Brotherhood's Words Run...LP—a good haul for an impulse visit. Whether you're in it for the punk singles, a GD Subhumans skate deck, marijuana socks or for an 8-foot ceramic bong shaped like a Ninja Turtle, Raunch is your lifestyle store for things that Mom and Dad would never approve. Plus, its white-bread Mormon surroundings provide the perfect foil for the county's burgeoning population of spiky-haired seminary dropouts. Brad knows his deal too. If you're feelin' saucy, ask him for the secret box of coveted 7"s behind the counter and LMK if that Life's Halt 7" with the Black Sabbath cover is still there.

5) Main Street Music (Beacon, NY): Beacon is the perfect setting for a horror movie. It also houses the Dia: Beacon museum, a great museum for those interested in seeing a giant hole cut out of the ground for no reason. I found The Wrestling Album here for $3, along with racks upon racks of homemade bootleg tape mixes and unofficial splits. Hooray for DIY and for whoever took the time to produce a Buzzcocks/X-RAY SPEX "split."

Dylan Chadwick is a writer who occasionally pays his bills as an illustrator. He owns 'Diary of a Madman' on every available format, including (as of this summer) 8-track.

Bachman Turner Overdrive - "Not Fragile"

Riffmas third offering: One of rock's official diss tracks and the first verified (ex) Mormon to make this list. 

Carnivore - 5 Billion Dead

There's this part on "World Wars III & IV" where Pete just wails "WE HATE THIS PLANET!" and it's the most nihilistic thing you've ever heard in your life. "5 Billion Dead" is the post-coital cigarette to that sentiment. The vivid world of Carnivore, all mutants and warheads and Mad Max costumes and shit, snarling and incoherent, cruelly silenced by nuclear democracy. The riff plays us out, a single ribbon of smoke curls upwards and then black. Just black. 

Getting Color (for just $2)

JUST $2! BUY YOUR OWN 

Just knowing that these carny sumbitches, these mad leathery dogs of glory, will drag makeshift razor blades across their own oily foreheads for cinematic effect just seals it for me: this shit is theater of the highest order. High order theater fueled by the warm, goopy, crimson-hued cocktail brewing inside all of us (spaghetti). The kind that even real deal coke-encrusted film directors couldn't truly achieve with an unlimited budget and the exhumed personage of Lon Chaney. Damn right, you unknowing asshole. Wrestling is "fake", but tell me...Mr. "REALITY"  how many buck-toothed simpletons really died during that scene in The Wild Bunch? Fuck. How many?! Those dudes weren't bleeding their own actual blood man. That's what I'm saying. It's A-R-T of  the flesh. And there's only 3. Sex. Death. Pro wrestling. The kind of art where you use your body, with its sinewy, corporeal limitations to express your inner-most depraved desires. The kinda shit they can't teach you in art school. It must be learned by some fat guy in a fanny pack who legit saw some shit in a rice paddy in Dan Nam. 

Here's to my favorite bleeder. A motherfucker who pre-dates hip hop, but somehow seems like he could've created it. Who docks the "K" from his name cuz it fucks up the symmetry when it's embroidered on his $10,000 robe. Who could carry the territories and survive a GEE-DEE plane crash in '75. The man who meant so much to Mid-Atlantic and the great wresting world at large that Vince Jr. simply could not job him into the midcard and HAD to give him the strap and put him in a main event program. The iron-flecked NWA ring where he dethroned Harley Race at the first Starrcade, and the gallons he's given to this business, in times of feast, and times of famine.

Ric gave his own blood for this business. Now buy a DAMN sticker. 

UFO - Prince Kajuku

Thee DDZ Premiere RIFFmas offering: British HARD rock from just after Vietnam and before that German gee-tar god got thrown in the mix. The lil flurry at 1:04 is my absolute fav, but the whole record is chock full of these little bastards. Happy riffing!