James Bond Is Occult As F*ck

The James Bond franchise is not something we typically associate with the occult or magic. But the two are completely intertwined on various levels internally, externally and for many reasons. The occult influenced James Bond and in turn James Bond has influenced the occult right back.

Dax Callner Interview

Dax Callner was the kid in Twisted Sister's highly succesful 'We're Not Gonna Take It' Video. He's now grown up and living in New York with with his wife and kids. We got together for a chat to talk about his band, his life and of course.... Twisted Sister! 

Weird Tribute Bands

Tribute bands always to some degree, albeit some a much larger degree than others, have a cheese and cringe factor that they cannot escape. Of course this is subjective to the viewer and in the eye of the beholder. Some people see any and every tribute band as cringe worthy simply because of what they are, a tribute band. The urge to wince or laugh at these bands for others might come from the cheap stage props and costumes protruding and distracting ones vision during the performance, making it almost impossible to take seriously. I for one cannot stand wig wearing chuds, power to you if you’re musically inclined and make a living, I just like real hair. There is another argument to be made though, because there are people out there who love tribute bands, not for a comical or a cheap laugh at their even cheaper aesthetic but for the bands authenticity. It could be the closest they’ll ever get to seeing or hearing the real thing live in the flesh, so they’re uninhibited by any signs of cheese and thoroughly enjoy the show. People enjoy watching an eagle fly majestically through the mountains just as much as some enjoy seeing a car crash on the side of the highway. Like everything in life, it’s subjective.

Nu Metal Albums By Artists Who Weren't Nu Metal

Nu Metal is something most people would like to either forget or make fun of these days. The legacy of Fred Durst and his counterparts is not something that is generally taken seriously by anybody, anymore. We all laughed when we saw Deadpool say, ‘’I’m gonna do to you what Limp Bizkit did to music in the late 90’s’’ in the movie because we knew deep down it was true. You’ve got to cringe now, right? The red sox hat, the whole ‘’white boy pulling words from the urban dictionary’’ lyrical shtick and that giant toilet... It seems like a parody in hindsight.

Best Bootleg Versions of Spider-Man

I want to celebrate the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming this week but this is ‘’Over The Counter Culture’’, so to write a typical, five star, glowing review of the movie wouldn’t be right for this blog (Homecoming was the best Spider-Man movie yet though IMO). Instead I’ve done something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now anyway and compiled a list of the best (read: random, hilarious) bootleg versions of Spider-Man I’ve come across over the last few years.

Hyundai Diver: Rock N' Roll In Advertising

Hyundai in Australia recently launched a new commercial that takes place in an alternate dimension, where coin operated look-out binoculars are sentient beings that steal family SUV’s for joy rides around the city while blasting ‘’Holy Diver’’ by Dio.

In case you’re not familiar with the song or singer, Holy Diver is regarded as a quintessential heavy metal anthem containing one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time and Ronnie James Dio himself is revered by many as the greatest heavy metal vocalist that ever walked the Earth. Many of my friends, band mates and social media followers seemed to be pleasantly taken aback by Hyundai’s choice to use this song for their advertisement. Other reactions weren’t as beguiled. Some folk thought this was a sign of metal once and for all truly being dead; With its corpse now only being dug up from the grave to help a huge corporation cater to an older demographic of consumerists (i.e. old school metalheads) so that they might be able to sell a few extra extremely un-metal cars. Many of the pissed off metalheads pondered as to whether Dio would be rolling in his grave if he knew his music was being used for soulless advertisements, but alas this was not the first time his music had been used in advertising. Not by a long shot.

Grunge Albums Made By Hair Metal Bands

If you’ve ever seen any  documentaries on 80’s hair metal or read any autobiographies by rock stars from that era, you’ll know that 98% of them (and most of their fans) blame the downfall of their genre on the rise of the Seattle Grunge scene, specifically Nirvana’s sophomore album ‘’Nevermind’’ being  the last nail in the coffin. In this article I’m going to talk about some albums where the glam metal stars decided  basically to say ‘’fuck it, if you can’t beat them, join them’’ and swapped out the aqua-net hair spray, falsetto screams and leather pants for the dirty jeans, flannel shirts and yarl vocal style.

That being said though, I don’t think all of the artists mentioned here changed their sound and image to fit with the times, for some of them it was a natural progression, artists change their style up all the time, take David Bowie or Madonna for example. People grow and their tastes change.  A lot of these albums are overlooked by both grunge fans and glam metal fans. The hardcore glam metal fans probably ignored them because they think if they enjoy anything that isn’t about the devil, cocaine or tits they’ll have an allergic reaction and break out into a rash whereas the grunge fans most likely ignored them because they were made by bands who were initially glam metal at the height of their popularity, which wasn’t cool (apparently it was overlooked if you weren’t popular or successful as a glam band cough Alice In Chains cough) or they just weren’t aware these albums existed at the time.