Ode to Gwar
Welcome to Nisstyre's Corner, I fear many strange eyes will be looking here since now I have been tagged by the WebKittyn at WebkittynWarbles.Com, and despite my lack of postings in my own blog I cannot offend the karma gods by not breaking the line of tagging. Thus 5 others will be reaped tonight, my mighty tagging ability shall fall upon them. I had other material written for tonight too, I was going to talk about my hometown and such, but it got really long and boring, I felt like I was rambling on like an old man. So I'm going the other way and I'm going to rant about Gwar, I'm going to educated you all about the story behind the band, more or less roleplay. Everyone who knows me, knows I worship the band, and yes, that is a fact, they are my all time favorite band, I will not say they are the greatest band on earth, because there are other musicians who do fare better in all aspects. But I'll do that ranting on the inside, sit back, cause i"m sure this is going to be a long one.
[ I HAVE BEEN TAGGED ]
Things That Make You Happy
The Rules:
List ten things that make you happy in no particular order.
Tag 0-5 friends.
THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY
1 . Warm body to snuggle with, who can't be happy with that.
2 . 65 Pontiac GTO along side the Childhood Memories of my Father's.
3 . Remembers things that were cool but you had forgotten about (Family Dog!)
4 . Listening to Gwar (shit...look at the book insice I just wrote about them)
5 . Making other people happy and secure with themselves, even if i"m not.
6 . Not having to work.
7 . Watching something really good, movie, anime.
8 . Ripping the fucking tongues out of people who say Pwned, and other internet jive talk.
9 . Satisfaction of a good day of work.
10. SKITTLES & PEPSI
And actually I must admit its hard to come up with a list, gets your thinking. Now to start slapping people in the head with a tag.
Unfortunatly I just came under the horrid realization that I don't know anyone I can tag that hasn't been already tagged, and as a blogger, I do suck big time. At least I got say what makes me happy :(
Click on that link below this to go into the "Extended" dwelling of the blog.
GWAR, as said maybe not the greatest band on earth, but in my eyes they are the greatest, cause I like them. I cannot say I was ever too much into serious music, all music is good, but I seemed to have always been more fond of the not so serious. Many have seen flashes of Gwar, or heard stories, and roughly the conception of what the band is, is a bunch of guys dressing up in foam customes and pretend to piss and jerk off on the growed, spraying them down with coloured liquids, and sing about raping babies. And yes, All of that is true. But there is more to the band, I don't remember the term but I know there are Roleplaying Bands, alot of RP Metal Bands who sing about made up adventures, and that is exactly what gwar does.
First off to put them into a genre almost cannot be done, its general thought of as METAL but even so, that doesn't really hold true. I dubbed it OPERA METAL, because they are for the most part very metal sounding, and I call it opera because their songs are not just about raping babies and killing humans, they are stories. You can find short blurps about the story around the net. But first lets get the "Real Life" Aspect of the band out of the way.
Gwar was founded in 1985, as an opening band for the punkish type band called Death Piggy. The band was made up of local college and art students, Death Piggy was one aspect, and then what is dubbed "The Slave Pit" which is a group of artists of all different forms (not just drawing) who came together to form this opening band, Gwar. The two groups would come together as The Slave Pit & Gwar (I don't think they had a name before, mostly they are called the slave pit, which is a gwar term).
The idea of Gwar was to do something different, and something fun. So they laid down a backstory and dressed up a Mutant Space Aliens, The Scumdogs of the Universe. These Scumdogs were a band of space pirates who did nothing but go from planet to planet, laying waste and having fun. They are controlled by The Master, who is the creator of the universe, supposely formed when he took a shit. When he wiped his ass, the members of the Scumdogs were formed.
Over the years the members of Gwar grew in power and stupidity, causing too much chaos and destruction with no reguard to the Scumdogs. Thus the master became angry, and banished them to the worse mud ball planet in the entire universe....Yay, Earth.
Then legend and lore says while on earth they had sex with monkeys and accidently created the human race. They continued to live until the destruction of Atantis, when once again the Master noticed them, and got angry. This time he banished them to Anartica, encased them in an ice tomb, where they slept for many years.
In the 80s, Musical Businessman Sleazy P. Martini was for some reason flying in his helicopter over Anartica, when he crash landed. He stumbled into Gwar's tomb and accidently sent them free. Seeing an oppertunity to exploit them for billions of dollars, he soon gained control of Gwar by feeding them cocaine, gave them instruments and marketed them for profit. Thus the band GWAR is born.
Since then, Gwar has spent the time playing music, in which they slaughter and maim all the humans who come to listen to their music. They have also had the on-going task of trying to get off this planet, they wish to return to space to wreck havoc and chaos once again, they have grown tired of the planet. But thus they always blunder the mission, and remain stuck on the planet, due to their stupidity.
There are many members of Gwar, some that have come and gone, but the main characters have always remained. Gwar.net currently doesn't have their main page up anymore, or I can't find it, just plays music and has their tour dates. Gwar is currently celebrating their 20th Anniversity.
THE MEMBERS OF GWAR
Oderus Urungus - Leader Singer
Balsac "The Jaws of Death" - Guitar, I guess backup for most
Flattus Maximus - Lead Guitar
Beefcake the Mighty - Bass Guitar
Jizmak da Gusha - Drummer
Slymenstra Hymen
The Sexicutioner
Sleazy P. Martini
These are the members of Gwar for the most part, there are many other members such as Techno Destructo who is a "scumdog" like gwar, but is treated like a slave. Then there are the slaves, which are in Rp terms humans that gwar captures and uses as slaves, they are suppose to go through them all the time, but in reality there is at least two who have remained with the band at all times. And actually only Oderus, Balsac and Jizmak are the only original members of the band, which even that can be "talked" about later, cause I know in the early dawn of Gwar there was another singer, so basically no one is original, but I'm talking from the Album respective.
Beefcake and Flattus have changed hangs several times over the years, about every other album. These are the albums of Gwar...
Hell-O
Scumdogs of the Universe
America Must Be Destroyed
The Road Behind LP
This Toilet Earth
RagNaRok
Carnival of Chaos
We Kill Everything
Violence Has Arrived
War Party
* Live from Mnt. Fuji
Ten Albums in 20 years, the * one is their only full live album, The Road Behind LP did feature a live track though. This is where you get into the "genre" aspect of Gwar, and what the fuck are they. The albums different alot in the type of sound, so lets go through them one by one. I am also going to speak of the story of each album, and hopefully a few songs, as I said, I classify them as Opera Metal cause their songs are telling the story of the album, for the most part.
HELL-O was their first album, and would fall into the realm of being punkish. Death Piggy was roughly a punk band so their first album still lingered with the sounds. The recording is kind of low since they did it themselves, of course with modern shit it has been made to sound good, but I guess in certain parts you can hear shit like a truck driving by, since "The Slave Pit" which is a real business, was located in some industrial area, in a old warehouse. There is no story with this album, except the usual killing, raping and slaughtering of the humans, one of Gwar's favorite pass times of course. The first story didn't start until the next three albums, which is when Gwar's popularity flared up in the early 90s.
SCUMDOGS OF THE UNIVERSE, AMERICA MUST BE DESTROY and THE ROAD BEHIND Lp is the first of "Gwar" stories. And can be found in movie form, called "Phallus in Wounderland" which was actually nominated for a..Tony Award, it is a B, possibly C class movie all done by the Slave Pit, which as I said earlier is a group of artists. These guys do not dress up in papermache outfits, they are forging shit like a movie studio would, latex compounds and such.
The movie is about the abduction of Oderus's penis, known as the Cuddlefish of Chutulu, which kind of looks like a snail. It is taken from Oderus by Grandbo and her Morality Squad, the christians, which is made up of Grandbo, an old hag confined to a tank like wheel chair, two special agents of the CIA, her grandson just back from the war in Iraq (1st one) Corperal Punishment, and her nephew Tiny which is really two men mutated together. They grow sick and tired of Gwar's corruption of the world through the music and tours, and after interigating the Cuddlefish (and even beforehand) go after Gwar to destroy them.
Gwar in the mean time have been doing what they've been doing since Sleazy P. Martini found them, slaughtering humans who come to their concerts and plot to escape the plant which to Sleazy says "Not if I can't help it". All of this is in the movie, but sadly the movie itself is horribly confusing. After reading this it would probably make sense to you. In the movie which is filled with videos, it starts off with the conception of Gor-Gor, which is an egg that Slymenstra (the only female character ever in the band) laid, and then Gwar pumped krak into it, so it came out as a horrid krak baby t-rex. And of course Gwar wants to fuck it and eat it, cause they are space aliens, in the movie this is all done to "Crack in the Egg" which is where their songs are telling the story. Later you see them in a couple of videos, good b&w ones to a couple of my favorite songs, then they are at a party on a rooftop in NYC (blue screen backdrop of the skyline and its like the twin towers all giant in the center, but of course this was many years before that, and its not like they attacked it in the movie, just background). It shows them making a ceral commerical, more or less showing the band being used and abused by the corperation, which plays alot in their stories.
The movie ends with Gor-Gor coming back full grown, and they battle amounst the city and defeat him. That was their first story and campaign, which as said spans those three albums. I will also note as I like to say they have the "greatest stage show on earth" for any band, because they more or less act this stuff out on stage, this movie was the more "in depth" approach with their own money of course.
This was when Gwar was big, you afterwards you find them on a few "pop" culture type things, like the movie S.F.W. (So Fucking What) which they have a song, or Jerry Springer, or "Empire Records". Gwar has always had a big underground following, and have never made it over the top big. For the most part the band has been poor, espcially in the later years. They have mostly been on METAL BLADE RECORDS until the last recent years, which their new label seems to treat them very well, where as Metal Blade did nothing for them after this era in the 90s.
THIS TOILET EARTH: After listening to the last three albums you'll kind of go What the Fuck. It starts off with Saddam A Go Go, which is a song that actually has a brass section and is just strange. Most of the music of this album was strange, and it was for a good reason. Due to the semi-not-really sucess of Phallus in Wounderland, the Slave Pit now attempted for a real B movie that would actually get played in theaters, the "midnight" shows. Thus comes their second movie and story, known as SKULHEADFACE.
The Movie starts off with Gwar having a marathon, FEED YOUR SOUL TO THE WORLD MAGGOT, which they were playing on Slave Pit TV, a suppose television channel they have. The World Maggot is a giant maggot underneath the earth, that once its had its fill of humans and their souls, will leave the planet. Gwar plans to ride the maggot from the planet using sadals....so thus they quest to feed the world maggot. Then comes in Mister, Misses, Doctor Skulheadface, who is an alien, but first appears as a large fat corperate executive. The movie goes away from Gwar sitting around a table with a giant "Marathon Counter" and eating humans to the meeting room of this corperation, who wishes to buy Gwar and exploit them. They discuss Gwar and the fact that the band itself was worthless, but the idea behind it could be used, assuming Gwar was nothing more then people dressing up in costumes. Making Dolls and Cartoons of them (of course all cute and children like), so they call upon Sleazy P. Martini, manager/owner. They try to bribe him, showing him trunks of cash, one bigger than another until he finally cracks. The deal is closed with one condition, that Sleazy P. Martini must kill Gwar so the corperation can go on with their plans. Sleazy refuses, saying nothing can stop Gwar and so forth, and Gwar bursts into the room and the slaughter begins. At first they all think its just costumes and such, but of course the truth comes out and the main fat executive flees to the elevator and disappears. In the elevator he removes his face to reveal this horrid alien head that looks like a giant skull. He goes down into his lab deep in the corperation building.
Inside he falls out of the elevator weak, and calls for his companion, Floppsies, which unfortunatly is a human with a vagina for a face. Gets dragged over and starts to reveal his true plot, even goes into a song after awhile. Hiding behind the Corperation look, Skulheadface is harvesting "gizmogloben" which is the source of people's talent, and basically the source of energy in life. The corperation has been signing bands, and then using a machine to suck them dry of the gizmogloben. Skullheadface is working for Cardinal Syn, a giant robot warlord in outterspace, a villain of Gwars which appears all throughout their stories, the previous movie does show a quick battle scene glimps against Cardinal Syn. Cardinal Syn has sent Skullheadface to Earth to harvest the gizmogoben, and does call him up in the movie (crude puppet!). Reveals Skullheadface has other intentions and has been using the stuff on himself, which would give him power.
Finally he lures Gwar down into the lab, in which a battle takes place between Gwar and the FleshCollum, which is a large machine built of the corpses of famous dead people. Gwar looses, and Skullheadface sucks their gizmogloben out with the machine, which in turns overloads the machine and they end up in this strange universal type place, Gwar has been turned into babies and Skullheadface has actually been turned into -her- real form. Through the movie it is hinted Skullheadface was something else, flashes of Cardinal Syn having a woman with the same large shaped head hooked up to the sucking machine, it quickly flashes it all, Syn pulling the lever, her screaming, Syn laughing, and her as Skullheadface, drained of her gizmogloben. She was once a powerful ruler and with this great power once again sees the day of light, and that happiness wasn't about power, blah blah blah. Gwar agrees as cute babies on screen, I ponder whos children got tortured for that part, they said they liked her as Skullheadface, and thus she returns the power.
Now the fucked up this is, all through this movie you stare at this robot head they made, which is very crude, the outside is good but the movements are horrid of course, entertainment though coming from those guys. The eyes moved and the jaw moved, but it had trouble, but it looks like a giant skull with this hole in the forehead, so all through this time you're just like, okay. Then when she is transfered back into her original self, she is wearing this thing over the hole and pulls it off, and she has an ass for a head more or less, and when she releases the gizmogloben, of course it comes out of the asshole on her forehead....
That in a nut shell was the second story, which all can be seen in the movie. In the end the World Maggot finally got its fill of humans, and took off from the planet with Gwar's Anartica Stronghold strapped to its back...sadly without them. Thus they are once again stuck.
RAGNAROK
This album is concidered my favorite, holds alot of meanings to me and the time that it came into my life, this is kind of where I began to listen to Gwar. As I said with This Toilet Earth, even after listening to all of the previous albums, you'll once again say What the fuck. Ragnarok is a strange album with alot of mixed instrumental shit in it, some keyboard, vocals, it just totally different from all the previous albums. And at this point pretty much all the rest of the albums go back and forth. Once again there is kind of a movie for this album, I was disappointed after buying the first two and then getting this. More or less its a recording of them doing the on-stage show of the album, with blurps and such added in, very much entertaining but not like the other two movies.
The end of the world is coming, a giant meteor is seen in the sky, its 1999 (was I think 96 or 97 though) and Gwar was touring to each town for their usual slaughter of humans, this time a celebration because they were going to once again get off the planet. This time using Comet Sadals, they would ride the meteor away from earth...er well jump on it when it slammed into the planet and ride it away. So as the world prepared for Doomsday, Gwar lived it up with the humans, and went on the slaughter.
What they do not know is the meteor is really Cardinal Syn, who is coming after Gwar, cause well, he's a villian. He needs a mutant baby fetus to be powered, and thus aliens come down to get one, made from Oderus's sperm and Slymenstra's womb. The video shows this, and one of my favorite gwar scenes, in which the aliens use a device to get Oderus off, and as any gwar show when he comes, its alot, he turns to the crowd and sings the pledge of alligance to one of their songs for a moment, jacking off and spraying everyone down. Yeah I know, its sick, just remember its water with color, and I get people who go "oh that sounds fun, yeah right" but hey, who said you gotta be right against the stage. So they go on about Slymenstra since she is now pregnant and really pissed off about it, Oderus talks about abortion...with a coat hanger and they play "Knife in your Guts", heh. The baby is born and they want to rape it. Then it gets stolen and put into Cardinal Syn, Gwar goes to Nasa and steals a shuttle, being morons blast off with the shuttle and the tower its hooked to, crash into Syn's ship, fight the bad guys. They raid the planet, Gwar fights then, and destroy Cardinal Syn in a really good "city" landscape battle they did with models. Thus ended Ragnarok, and pretty much all I can tell you.
CARNIVAL OF CHAOS is a mixture of their music, metal, punk, even a jazz like song. From this point now that Gwar had been popular, they began to explore, and even some say get really weak, which even Dave (Oderus) says they got fat and lazy. The general storyline was about Techno Destructo wanting to take power, and attacking Gwar with an army of mutant pengiuns. There is a concert dvd of this, like Ragnarok.
WE KILL EVERYTHING is concider by at least Gwar to be their low point, the album was fine but it was nothing like the old stuff, they said it was going back to their roots, which is was, punkish like music, a little too happy, and even the videos for the music showed this. The dvd for this is "It's Sleazy" which is as fun as the rest, and an actual movie like show, a daytime talk show hosted by Sleazy. They introduce a new character called Scrota Moon who didn't go over wel, the story was about them being on this show and being teamed up with their "lost long" brother scumdog, which they booze and drug him up so he can rejoin them. He has a tablet of great power, in which Gwar breaks and the pieces are stolen. They must get them back or else The Master, the creator of them and the Universe will be angry, yet again. They discover the Portal Potty, a portal toilet which they summon up everyone who stole the pieces, such as Marilyn Manson, Elvis, and once again this is the shit you'd see on stage. The crowd in the show is made up of all the characters they've used in the movies and stage. Entertaining as always.
VIOLENCE HAS ARRIVE: Once again Gwar changes, this album is more metal, a step up from what they where and an attempt to go back to the Scumdogs of the Universe sounding days. It was a good album but I must admit I know nothing of the story, basically Gwar wages war on earth, and it was a good album.
WAR PARTY: Is the newest, now a year old. Once again unclear of the storyline, its about Gwar taking over the government I believe, and the destruction of all humans as usual. That is all I can really say, it lingers with the same sound of Violence Has Arrived, but I must admit it sounds very much like the Scumdogs Days, alot faster and harder now they are attempting to keep up with the times.
And that is all I'm going to tell you about Gwar for the moment, it took me many hours to write this and my brain hurts from the thinking and whatnot. This is Gwar, and I enjoy them because they are not just another band, even if they "can't play their instruments" as they even say, but then again, listen to them, cause they can play.