Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Every Shirt XCIII: Nokturnal Mortum

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shirt: Nokturnal Mortum - NeChrist
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2005
provenance: festival

If this shirt had instead come up in the slot that the Napalm Death shirt fell into last week, it would have looked a mite suspicious, and required an explanation. Even so, there are probably going to be some people who wonder what the hell someone who likes Napalm Death (and Kreator, and Heaven Shall Burn, and Ignite, etc, etc) as much as noted in that post is doing with a NM shirt at all.

The reason is simple: I like Nokturnal Mortum. I'm not a fan of their politics, but they make good music, and this is the consideration that should matter the most. And in Europe, despite the antifa laws (which I'm also not a huge fan of) that we don't have here in the States, their material is a little easier to get ahold of. Hence this shirt at Wacken '05, and a tape comp of some old Graveland EPs probably personally set up by Varggoth, and an actual Temnozor record. It's tough to pull the wallet out, intellectually, but the fact that you're getting good music in return helps, and the knowledge that more of the bands that I support are actively left than actively right makes the political dimension more or less a wash.

I've only felt genuinely torn in buying one record for reasons of politics: Iced Earth's Glorious Burden. This is because Jon Schaffer was constantly bloviating about the rectitude of the neocons, who were actually affecting the world in a way that I didn't and don't agree with, and I was convinced that this political madness had made him write a mediocre record. In the end, I did buy it, found that this wasn't 100% true, but also that I already had the last half-hour of the disc in expanded form as Gettysburg and that Tim Owens is the worst lyricist in the history of ever. Seriously. Everyone bitching about Frank's lyrics on the new Suffocation, or that someone in Tankard thinks that "cruely" is an English word, needs to go re-read "Red Baron" and come back when they agree with this thesis.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Every Shirt XCII: Agalloch

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shirt: Agalloch
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2005
provenance: festival

A simple and minimalist shirt that follows a pattern of other folkic metal bands (see CNV, Primordial) of silver print on black fabric, this one was picked up at the 2005 W:O:A despite being a little small, because I had no idea when I'd run across an Agalloch shirt ever again. I haven't, yet, making this a doubly smart purchase if for no other reason.

On the back is the legend WE ARE THE WOUNDS, cementing the shirt as Mantle-vintage (which it is), but also making it kind of emo. Fortunately (if unfortunately for other designs), I rarely wear just metal shirts, which tends to cover up back designs in any case.

Every Shirt XCI: Ensiferum - Paganfest

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shirt: Ensiferum - Paganfest '08
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: festival

I got this shirt at the 2008 NEMHF, which hopefully is the last time this tour series -- which deserves to continue -- gets routed through a festival that restricts average set times below 30 minutes. Nevertheless, the band was as awesome as might be expected, and whoever's promoting this shit decided, over the course of the tour, that the idea of bringing a bunch of killer but underexposed-in-North-America Euro bands over before festival season starts was a good idea commercially as well as artistically, and we got full sets from a debatably better slate this year.

Not seen on the shirt due to the fold is the real point of the art; the heathen patriarch-spirit is blessing the crossing of viking boats from east to west across the Atlantic.

Every Shirt XC: Keep of Kalessin

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shirt: Keep of Kalessin
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

Picked up one of the two times I saw them last year (probably the second, playing on a wicked odd bill with Eluvetie, Dying Fetus, and Kataklysm), this shirt has kind of languished, partly because the DF shirt that I got the same night (still forthcoming) was hell of awesome, and partly because I'm not sure that I parsed it correctly before this. The face in the upper left that makes this shirt cool doesn't really come out without the flash; either that, or I didn't notice it before because the design does too good a job of obscuring it live.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXIX: Amon Amarth - Wrath of the Norsemen

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shirt: Amon Amarth - Wrath of the Norsemen tour
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

Acquired on their tour at the end of 2007 with the much-disapprobated Sonic Syndicate, this is a cool shirt, but not quite the most impressive bit of wearable gear that I got at the show. Ok, so it's not actually gear, but more of a gear enhancement; see the lead of the writeup for more information.

I'm not sure how many Amon Amarth shirts this makes so far, or that I have total; there are a lot of them, as you might expect from an awesome band that tours a lot and consistently has good art design. Maybe once this finishes, there'll be room to take stock.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXVIII: Napalm Death

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shirt: Napalm Death
size: 2XL (US)
vintage: 2006
provenance: band

Picked up at one of the first major shows of my time as a completist metalhead, this shirt remains an abiding favorite both for its cool design and because it fits over my carcass without a lot of stretching. If I remember correctly, this was the first time that I saw Napalm Death, but I've rarely passed up an opportunity to do so since, including when I was suffering from minor smoke inhalation at the '07 W:O:A.

Speaking of said band and said festival, the running order is out, and I have to miss them because they're playing against Einherjer, who I'd skip in preference if, you know, they hadn't been broken up for five years and I'd never seen them live. It's a logical decision to make, as are most of the conflicts on this fest that I'm pissed about: the audience overlap is pretty small between these two bands, between Heaven Shall Burn and Borknagar, between Amon Amarth and Pentagram (the Chilean one that's been broken up for like 20 years), between GWAR and Korpiklaani, but it does exist....even if it's limited to one American dude who can't stop whining about seeing one kickass band instead of another.

/jawdrop

Seriously. Through the fucking floor.

Why?

Swashbuckle is playing Wacken. (article in German, man up and learn the lingo)

Before this point, the Medieval stage (and the entire Medieval Village, for that matter) was completely useless and a prime argument that the festival had jumped the shark. Now, as long as they're not playing against anyone of ocean-crossing draw power, I have to go there. Even if it's the smallest and newest of the stages, this is three years removed from playing dive bars on the East Coast out of a van. Actually, they're probably playing Europe out of a van, too, and will be cussing when they get there that they're tied up for the week because there's only one usually-closed-for-festival road going through Wacken, but still.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXVII: Zyklon

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shirt: Zyklon
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2006
provenance: festival

In truth, I'm not sure where this shirt came from. I'm pretty sure that I've seen Zyklon a grand total of once, on the 2005 W:O:A, and I didn't get this shirt there. I'm also kinda sure that I didn't have it going in, would never have found it at retail even if I was so inclined, and didn't order it from anywhere; the sole rational explanation is that I got this at NEMHF 2006 along with several other shirts, some of which were also from bands not playing. It's as good an explanation as any.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXVI: Necrophagist

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shirt: Necrophagist
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2006
provenance: festival

My contribution to the gigantic run on Necrophagist merch at NEMHF 2006 (it's buried in that mass of occasionally-completely-wrong-about-which-band-is-which text; lol@ Arsis as grind, what the fuck is that? More second-stage-schedule-screwups, plus of course me not listening to bands before going to see them), this was picked up the next day from a table in the vendor area, because the band's merch concession was completely sold out of anything remotely in my size by the time I got back there. It's getting almost trendy to dismiss Necrophagist, but look back on this and remember: back when nobody knew who they were, they came to the States and owned massive face and made converts. And if you let your mind go and listen to their records again, you see why.

I don't have a Summer Slaughter ticket yet, but I will, of course, despite said fest being six days before I hop a plane to the eastern half of my festival plans this year. Yes, half; SS, then W:O:A and Party.San, finishing off with NEDF at the end of August. Maybe I should count NEMHF, though it's not in the summer, or Witchstock, though it's not metal, but then things wouldn't balance out right.

Every Shirt LXXXV: Death - Symbolic

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shirt: Death - Symbolic
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: catalog

Ordered at the same time and from the same source as the preceding Death album shirt, this one is similarly kind of small and also hasn't seen an excessive amount of wear. This is the main downside of having so stupidly many shirts (well, aside from having nowhere to put the damn things); even good shirts from bands you like can end up getting pushed down to the bottom of the pile, there to languish indefinitely. We're 85 shirts deep already, and there's more than a couple shirts that I used to wear all the time (before I started this project, that is) that haven't come up yet.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXIV: Gamma Ray

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shirt: Gamma Ray raglan
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: festival

I got this shirt at the 2006 NEMHF, but Gamma Ray must have brought it over from Europe with them rather than producing it here, as this is small even for a Euro XL. The design is cool, though, which almost makes up for the fact that it's a long-sleeve. Were this a short-sleeve shirt, it'd see a lot more use.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXIII: Iron Maiden - Wicker Man

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shirt: Iron Maiden - Wicker Man/Brave New World tour
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2000
provenance: band

Picked up on their comeback-this-time-with-a-real-album-that-is-actually-awesome tour, probably for way too much money relative to other bands, other shows, and everything except the ticket price, this is I think the first Maiden shirt that made it into my inventory; others would follow, and mostly on the same pattern of see the band live, give them way too much money for a metal shirt $35 are you fucking kidding me, and go home happy anyway because Iron Maiden are awesome. The Golden Spiral, as it were.

Every Shirt LXXXII: Death - Leprosy

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shirt: Death - Leprosy
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: catalog

Ordered with a couple other shirts in an order done just after I got back to the US, this is your basic utilitarian metal shirt. As the degree of wear should indicate, if I want to wear a Death shirt, I usually grab this one; I like Leprosy as a record, but there's a lot more personal history in the other one, and it also represents something that Chuck put out or at least had input on, rather than a pure label creation.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Every Shirt LXXXI: Tankard - The Morning After

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shirt: Tankard - The Morning After
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: festival

This shirt is one of my least favorite, despite having the wicked badass cover of probably my favorite Tankard record on the front. Why? Because it has that awesome graphic, and remains the smallest allegedly-XL shirt in my collection. This is debatably smaller than a US L, and, as discussed on other Tankard shirts, this is somewhat of an endemic problem with this band's merchandise. Seriously what the hell.


Also:
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Wat drauf. I haz it. If you're familiar with who I am in real life, I can be prevailed upon to lug your band's small merch over to Germany and give it away at these festivals.

Every Shirt LXXX: Godless Rising

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shirt: Godless Rising
size: 2XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

Picked up probably when I saw them at the Skybar in early '07, this is a good shirt from what was a good and promising band that kind of came apart at the seams. I'm not sure that they ever really differentiated themselves; I have both records, and on there, the band is still trying to separate themselves as distinct from all the other hordes of minor-label death metal bands, without leaning too heavily on the "we used to be in Vital Remains" dimension. Good music, though, and this is a cool shirt.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Every Shirt LXXIX: Ensiferum

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shirt: Ensiferum - Very Strong Metal
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: catalog

Ordered either while I was still in Germany or shortly after returning, this is a smallish shirt that still sees a lot of use, principally due, I think, to the extremely metal conceit at the heart of it: the equivalence of metal with beer. A significant contributing factor may be that the design is also cool, and that Ensiferum is a pretty damn cool band, all injuries aside.

Nobody ever read any of the early stuff, so the reason that every time I talk about Ensiferum, I mention getting hurt, needs some explanation. The short version is that the first time I saw them, on the Party Stage in '05, I got into a bit of the general melee and fucked up the knee that doesn't typically get injured. But they were still badass, and got a top score despite adjustments for injury. Needless to say, this put a bit of a damper on the rest of the day, having to stump around on two bad, swelled-up knees, but at least Metal Church and Obituary were wicked awesome immediately following -- this does serve as a sort of tonic, though I'd hesitate to prescribe it for...well...anyone who isn't already at Wacken or a similar festival and in a position to self-administer.

Every Shirt LXXVIII: W:O:A 2007 Black Stage

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shirt: W:O:A 2007 - Black Stage
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2007
provenance: festival

As with the prior year's shirt, I tend to get the Black Stage design because I tend to go to Wacken for Black Stage bands: Dissection and Kreator in 2005, Atheist, Amon Amarth, and Emperor in '06, Immortal and Sodom this year, Kreator, Carcass, and At The Gates last year, and in the coming iteration, Borknagar and Einherjer (as well as Running Wild and the Chilean Pentagram, who seem to be fluttering between confirmed and not). In this case I saw all or most of the following bands from the back:

Immortal
Type O Negative
Destruction
Dimmu Borgir
Sodom
Therion
Cannibal Corpse
Enslaved
Amorphis
Napalm Death
Possessed
Suidakra
The Vision Bleak
1349
Sabbat

I missed Samael, Moonspell, Vital Remains, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Belphegor, Moonsorrow, Swallow The Sun, Communic, Tyr, Turisas, Norther, Dimension Zero, Secrets of the Moon, Sahg, Unheilig, Drone, and Chthonic. That's a good festival bill's worth of bands just right there, but some of them were missed through no fault of my own, and others that I consciously gave a pass to, I think I made the right decision.

Bone Awl with Ashdautas, Volahn, and Witch Tomb [O'Brien's, Allston, 6/15/2009]

No longer sick, on-call, or preoccupied with moving stuff, I went in for this rather awesome black metal gig, and effectively reacquainted myself with the protocols of Boston shows. Traffic was almost non-existent, and my anticipated time for the walk in from Cambridge must have been set when I was a lot less walk-capable, so I ended up getting over to O'B's about half an hour before nominal doors. Of course, this was a DIY show, so nobody cared; I sat around on the sidewalk cooling down for 15 minutes or so, then went in and got some beer and some merch.

There was some lineup flux in the show going in, and -- always a sign of good bands on a successful tour -- the merch selection was not biased towards the convenient and the portable. I missed the last Volahn pin, but scored an Ashdautas record (good stuff, nearly as impressive as their live effort) and some Bone Awl cassettes. I was thinking about maybe getting a 7" or two as well, but the awkwardness of hand-carrying them through the rest of the show, and the certainty that they would end up snapped if I put them inside the back jacket pocket, put the nix on that until it was too late.

Witch Tomb [6/7]
It'd been a while since I'd seen these guys last, but the performance proved that I hadn't just been building them up in my head all this time; just as black, brutal, and hateful as might be desired. They allegedly had some new material, but I'm not sure that I heard anything I didn't recognize; if there was new stuff, it's solidly in the dominating tradition of the old, still holding up the vicious end of NEBM. Cody was, as often, the only one on the bill blacked up, but either as a new angle or as a concession to how hot it gets inside O'Brien's around this time, he had a more conventional corpsepaint design reminiscent of Alan Nemtheanga (Primordial) or Sarcofago. With a limited supply of data points over a long time axis, it's difficult to determine if this is a manifestation of developing ideas on what image Witch Tomb should present, or a postmodern (and thoroughly old-school BM) refutation of the idea that image, or indeed anything except what's coming out of the speakers, matters when considering a band. In regards that most important dimension, though, the sole shortfall in this performance was that there wasn't enough of it; Witch Tomb got a good thick set for an opener, but any time you've got a good band cranking along and hitting their stride, it's a bummer when they have to close up and make way for the next.

With Mind Eraser not on this show (they'd previously been announced, then dropped, then reannounced, then dropped again), there was a nice symmetry of brutal-mystic-mystic-brutal as regards the emphases of the bands, which meshed well with the crowd that showed up. As seems to be the case for black metal in Allston these days, the venue was packed, in about equal proportions of hipsters, normal people, and aspirational militants. ('Normal' here, of course, being normal metal fans.) I try not to judge people by appearances, or begrudge anyone the right to support touring bands, and my black metal militant days are long behind me, but you look at some of the conduct seen here, and think back to the days when people used to huff dead animals and fuck up their own lives permanently for this music and think, how do we get from A to B? No declaration of genre death, though; eventually, people who are into black metal because it's kvlt rather than because they love the music will move on, and DIY shows like this show that the music will continue to go back to its deep dark wellsprings to reinvent itself whenever it needs to.

Volahn [6/7]
The first of the touring bands, they'd been billed as sounding like early Immortal, but while I'm not sure how accurate that is as a description of the music, as an indicator of quality it was pretty much dead on. The band (in this live iteration) included nearly all of the same members, in nearly all of the same positions, as Ashdautas, and as someone who didn't take notes but did take several pints of beer while at this show, it's not always the easiest to discriminate between these two bands. Volahn had a little more instrumental bite to them due to having two guitars instead of one, and more screamed than shrieked vocals -- and if you're asking yourself what the difference is in that regard, you don't listen to enough underground black metal. They also felt like they could have gone on a few more songs longer, but unfortunately did not; this, as seen above and below, is kind of a theme of this show.

I got another beer, sat down for a bit, and turned back around to find virtually the same band setting up on stage. It's like Composted and the last TYAG lineup, except that the singers in the aforementioned band usually have baked goods or dildo hats or something on top of their heads, rather than rendition hoods.

Ashdautas [6.5/7]
The general expansive Norwegian-first-wave sound was common with Volahn, but the slightly sparser instrumentation meant more space in the sound, which was a plus in this mystic and ritualistic outing. The singer also delivered with some of the best absolute shrieking I've heard from a band not named Bethlehem, and did it while wearing a bag over his head for the entire set. Some cynics may correctly observe that wearing a tentlike bedsheet cloak does not make you Wormphlegm, it merely makes you a guy under a black bedsheet with armholes, these people weren't in the audience, obviously, because if they were, they'd see how well this one bit of costuming works in this particular context. The sound, of the instrumentals and of the expressive vocals, really goes out and grabs you, and then you stop thinking about Jawas and shit and concentrate on how awesome the band is being.

Bone Awl [6/7]
A return to the dirtier and more brutal sounds that Witch Tomb had started off with, Bone Awl brought the proceedings full circle with a nice thick set of thrashing, vicious black metal. There was, as might have been anticipated, not a whole lot of movement on the floor at this shindig, but Bone Awl saw the most intensity and most collisions of the few that were. They may not have had the musical highs that Ashdautas did, at least from my perspective, but they did lay out a hellish fun set of crushing music, and what turned out to be an appropriate conclusion to a damned good show that will probably turn up among the year's best.

The "turned out" part is in there because after Bone Awl wrapped, I and a bunch of other people hit the sidewalk to chill out and cool down, not certain if Mind Eraser was going to play or not. Eventually, I decided that even if they did, it wasn't worth the extra time spent, so I hiked back across the bridges to pick up my car, drive home, and get to sleep a little after 2AM, leaving barely four hours before I had to get up and go to work. And we do this again come Thursday; Composted, Hivesmasher and Parasitic Extirpation in Worcester. One expects many fewer hipsters, and a much, much lower chance of getting through without injury in the absence of appropriate leg armor, but about the same levels of skullcrushing metal.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Every Shirt LXXVII: Suffocation

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shirt: Suffocation
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

This is a tour shirt, the graphic not tied to any particular album; I picked it up at about the one major show I went to during the brief time I was between jobs at the end of '07, their stop with Skinless and Immolation that turned out to be the last gig that I saw at Mark's Showplace. I can't say that I'm sad to see the venue go; this was a great show to close out, personally, with, and I don't miss the two-hour drive, the traffic jams at the New Hampshire Neckdown, the inflated beer prices, the occasional cuts of headliner sets to make way for P2P openers, and the other assorted drama much at all. Mark's provided a vital showcase function for new bands, but for every Ruin (ME), Lord Bacon, or Severed Survival that I wouldn't've seen otherwise, there was a set from any number of less memorable bands that I could have done just as well without.

To write up Friday's Autumn Above show or not? On the con side, the opener was an AIC cover band and AA fits no canonical definition of metal exactly. On the pro side, Mongrel and Scarecrow Hill are going to be playing this same bar (yes, at the same time) in like a week or so, and if I go write up that show for the lulz (and because it's 2 blocks from my apartment), I kind of have to write up the good bands playing good shows there as well. Whatever, it's not getting done in advance of Bone Awl tomorrow night.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Every Shirt LXXVI: Motorhead

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shirt: Motorhead
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

I have this shirt because, essentially, the promoters who book Mohegan Sun are kind of stupid. Motorhead was out on the Masters of Metal tour with Testament, Priest, and Heaven & Hell (the last, of course, better known as "Dio Sabbath"), but apparently Mohegan Sun didn't want to pay any of the thrash bands, so Testament played the night before with local support, and then Motorhead came up to headline over a bunch of metalcore bands. Uncasville is too far to get to from the North Shore mid-week, but Worcester is just a-ok; I got back-to-back nights of killer sets, and the people who went to the casino date had fewer reasons to think about the stress of maybe having to stand up.

Every Shirt LXXV: Destruction - Thrash Anthems

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shirt: Destruction - Thrash Anthems
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

This one's basically just a general utility metal shirt, much as, for most of their career, Destruction's been a general utility thrash metal band. The shirt is from their 2007 tour, which came through the Boston area as part of what became Metal Winter Break. This was a good time, right up at contact range, and if the setlist wasn't as good as the second time I saw them touring on this greatest-hits package, I could actually see the band rather than some ambiguous movement behind a camera crane.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Every Shirt LXXIV: Illogicist

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shirt: Illogicist
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

Given the comments on the show that I got this at -- the band's fall stop supporting Impaled -- it's a little ironic that it pops up right after a Revocation shirt. Nothing aforethought, though; I didn't sort the shirt pile, so this is no more than the odd accident that shaded Boston people's reaction to the band in the first place. It's still a pretty neat shirt, even if the colors are a little drab, and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the band again.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Every Shirt LXXIII: Revocation

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shirt: Revocation logo
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2006
provenance: band

Acquired at the same "tomorrow's foldout bands today" show as another recent DIY white print, this probably isn't going to be the last logo-only version of this design; it is, however, the only version that exists at this point. It's seen heavy service, but as the band's gotten more prominence and put out other designs, it's been retired from extra-continental service; I don't want to lose this slice of history on some meaningless stretch of tarmac in Frankfurt or Hong Kong or somewhere because my luggage decided to go a-wandering on its own.

Every Shirt LXXII: Embryonic Devourment

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shirt: Embryonic Devourment
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

This one comes from the Deepsend tour that came through my neck of the woods in March 2008, when this band's current release was Fear of Reality Exceeds Fantasy, whose cover forms the main motif of this shirt, and is unfortunately overexposed in this image. In the flesh, this is a hell of awesome shirt, with the seriously intricate and varicolored cover painting translated almost perfectly into the print. With bands on non-major labels (and seriously, while Deepsend's average artist/release quality is at least on a par with, if not better than, the majors, their total turnover isn't on the same level), you don't really expect to see this level of production values, but because of that reset expectation, a lot of other hardened and jaded metalheads who saw this tour were probably also incentivized to get the shirt instead of just giving the band beers and backslaps; the investment in full-color shirts is a risk, but there's nothing in that that says that it won't pay off.

Every Shirt LXXI: Cold Northern Vengeance

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shirt: Cold Northern Vengeance - Domination & Servitude
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

It's sometimes a little difficult to date CNV's work, because they tend to have a fair number of false starts as regards putting records out. Domination & Servitude was actually announced in '07 if I remember correctly, and didn't finally come out on Bindrune until the fall of '08. What's easier to date, though, is stuff like this, because I picked it up from them at a live show, and they and their associated bands don't play out much. This was from their slot supporting Watain in October; the other possibility would have been way back at the start of '07, but at that point, they were down to the very last of the Arising Dungeon Cult shirts, and Paul wasn't going to sell me an undersized shirt that I wasn't going to wear. Regardless, this is a neat shirt in silver print (kind of a thing in the folkish BM community, at least by the smallish sample space I have) that by its outstanding neutrality of design should help allay the lingering perception that the band is NSBM rather than NEBM with some weird philosophical precepts attached.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Every Shirt LXX: Wolven Ancestry

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shirt: Wolven Ancestry
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

This comes from one of the few non-Metal Thursday shows I've been to at Ralph's, and one of the few bands who've played there in corpsepaint. They pulled it off, though, which is quite impressive, though definitely a comment on their music most of all; solidly up to the standard of "Epic Canadian Black Metal" promised on the back of this shirt.

This now makes ten full weeks of shirts. There are 68 or so more shirts stacked up, so this project is not likely to finish before the end of September. Yes, it should go faster at one shirt per day, but I'm going to have to go on a hiatus for the Euro trip: not only is it unfeasible to post every day, it's not really possible to lug 20 shirts over in addition to my camping gear. And then there's the issue of new shirts between now and then, both local stuff and the obligato festival gear.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Every Shirt LXIX: Swashbuckle

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shirt: Swashbuckle - Wooden Legs & Emptied Kegs
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2006
provenance: band

Long before Swashbuckle were on Nuclear Blast and putting out shirts with blinged-out versions of this logo, they were hauling their pirate act to small clubs along the Eastern seaboard, and it was at just such a show in October 2006 that they were completely awesome at and convinced me to pick up this shirt.

Looking back at that gig really shows the value of going to local shows for a metalhead, and perhaps by extension for everyone. If you go to a lot of DIY shows, you're going to see a fair number of subpar bands, and a lot of other bands that are never going to do anything noteworthy outside their immediate local scene, either because they're not original enough, or life factors intervene and tear the band apart. However, you're also likely to see and get to know a few bands that will get big, long before they get up to that kind of status, and quite a few that would or could have if not for tricks of fate. Of the five bands on the bill that I got this shirt at, three of them are now signed to what function as major labels in the metal world: Swashbuckle on NB, Revocation to Relapse, and now Ramming Speed (just a name change, it's still the same five guys who were in Despotic Robot at this point) on Candlelight. Of the others, Deathamphetamine might well have been if they hadn't had such trouble keeping their lineup together, and as for Unholy Trinity, it's pretty much an article of faith in Boston that at least Mike (drums) and Blue (bass) would be able to get their band to that level, provided that they decided to concentrate on a single band to do so with. In this case, it's a question of priorities rather than ability.

The tl;dr version: support your local scene, because eventually, you'll be in the middle of the pack at an arena show and be able to say, "man, this is nothing, I remember seeing these guys back when they were playing clubs that didn't have enough floor space for everyone to load in at once, and they were awesome even back then." Also, the New England scene is wicked awesome, and people should watch out for the next wave of bands. My educated guess is going to be Boarcorpse, Composted (unless the government promotes Mark to be Czar of Trains or something), and maybe Razormaze if the thrash revival continues or they're able to get a unique angle like Ramming Speed did. Watch Blabbermouth for these names (even just to mock me if this is totally wrong), and go to shows so you can brag about seeing them at Ralph's or O'Brien's or Cherry St. or AS220 and lord it over the peons from other parts of the country.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Every Shirt LXVIII: Tankard (Chinese)

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shirt: Tankard - Chinese baseball ringer
size: XL (EU)
vintage: 2006
provenance: catalog

This is one of my favorite shirts, and probably the genesis of the Nuclear Blast catalog pull that it came from, both for the cool yet simple design, and because it combines two of my abiding passions in metal and language geekery. For those who don't indulge in the second, the Chinese characters translate to "beer mug", so if I were to wear this to a work function, my Taiwanese boss would rip on me, saying something like "why you wear a shirt that just says Tankard twice on it?" The first two are the part that says "beer", so practice writing it if you think you may sometime get stranded in interior China without a booze supply. The second character from the left, if you ever find yourself in that situation, just means "alcohol", making it a good candidate for the one Chinese glyph to keep around for emergencies.

Nin hao, ninmen yao pi jiu ma? Wo xihuan, he pijiu.
Xiexie...daxie, gege le.
((glub glub glub))
Wo.....wo ai ni. Wo ai niimen dou. DOU!!!!

(don't blame me for the absence of tone marks, or if the slang isn't correct...it's been three years.)

Every Shirt LXVII: Cattle Decapitation

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shirt: Cattle Decapitation - Gore Not Core
size: 2XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

Coming from their appearance on the 2007 Summer Slaughter round, this one features a back design taking off from the Black Circle's famous "No Mosh - No Core - No Fun - No Friends" motto, done as "No Breakdowns - No Combovers - No Karate - No Scene", superimposed over some metalcore dude picking up change. The irony is conscious, and, of course, intentional, because Cattle Decap is that hep to all corners of the scene -- and the irony is, of course, its own irony in the context of this design.

Ok, this entry is entirely too fucking meta for a description of a shirt that's fundamentally about shooting posers. On to something completely different.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Every Shirt LXVI: Pelican

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shirt: Pelican
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

This one comes from their tour with Thrice in May '08, which included the Palladium stop that ranked as one of my more trying experiences as a metalhead. I'm re-watching the W:O:A '05 DVD right now, so all the associations are from Germany: drown me in '05, burn me in '07, it still doesn't come close to having to stand in a crowd of hipsters, children and idiots to see a four-song set from an awesome band go largely unacknowledged. At least I got this neat and suitable-for-civilian-events shirt out of it, as well as nearly everything the band's recorded that I didn't have already....which wasn't all that much, actually.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Every Shirt LXV: In Flames

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shirt: In Flames - Clayman/Nightmare Before Christmas
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2001
provenance: catalog

A leftover from the band's tour on this record at the end of 2000 -- which I did not go to, being in school in Maine, broke, and absolutely without reasonable transport -- this was raked in with a couple other shirts in that order in early '01. It's seen a fair amount of wear because it for whatever reason tended to float at the top of the shirt piles and became a kind of utility shirt.

This shirt has, oddly, improved with age. As In Flames continues to fall off the cliff, the "last good In Flames record" consensus keeps shifting futureward; you can still find a few pre-Jester Race types who are trying deliberately to be kvlt, but the majority has gotten past Colony and is holding out on this one. The body of terrible material on Reroute... will probably draw a bright line there, but what the hell do I know?

Monday, June 01, 2009

Every Shirt LXIV: Covenance

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shirt: Covenance (2008 tour)
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

Picked up at a Metal Thursday sometime in the middle of 2008, this is a bare-bones shirt from a band that I had a hard time sufficiently compensating for their efforts. Not as a matter of choice; they did a killer set, but they weren't charging for their demo on CD, the shirt was about $5, and the 7" I picked up at the end of the show was like $3. Definitely DIY, but given where gas prices were last summer, you have to wonder about sustainability.