#kirk hammett fan fiction

[klirk-hammurton]

Devil's Advocate

This is a little sneak peek at one of the fics I'm working on. Incubus!Kirk Hammett x Fem!Reader

His grip tightens on your throat, "You talk too much. I know of better ways to put that pretty mouth of yours to use." His lips are crushed against yours to quiet your ramblings. You moan heatedly into his mouth, the sharp point of his labret piercing scratches against the skin just below your lower lip. He tasted of alcohol and expensive cigars; it was intoxicating. Your head swam with lust and ecstasy as he pulls away from the kiss. His eyes were dark, lustful, and dangerous. There was something different about Kirk compared to other men. Just the mere sight of him and hearing his voice turned you on like you had never been before.

"You'd be lucky if I don't just fuck you in my car right here and now," he growls. The thought of him having you contorted in numerous angles had your thighs almost trembling. 'Trust me Baby Doll, you'll get every sinful request your pure little heart desires.' His voice sounded heavenly in the back of your mind. You weren't sure how exactly he did it, but he always seemed to know just what was on your mind. He roughly pulls you against his body, "you're MINE." His possessiveness had you wishing he'd fuck you right there in the seats of his car. He gestures with his head for you to get into the passenger seat. Plush, red and black leather seats definitely suited the aesthetic of his sports car. "Hang on Baby Doll, this isn't going to be your only rough ride tonight."

[giadavazquez1963]

"lost in the 80s" - my metallica dr-based fanfiction!!

chapter one: hungover at the beach 

I woke up to the sound of my roommate (who’s simultaneously my ex-boyfriend and best friend), Dave, throwing my bedroom door open, yapping about how it’s time for me to wake up. It’s 9am on a Friday, band rehearsal is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and it’s never this early, so why the fuck is he waking me up now? Naturally, instead of getting up, I pulled my covers over my head, avoiding the light that was making my head pound so hard that I felt like a vampire with light sensitivity issues. I was incredibly hungover from the night before, we spent all night drinking and partying, celebrating our album coming out soon, finally finishing another song after weeks cramped in that tiny studio going over the same riffs. I’ve never been much of a partier or a drinker like the others, but it was Lars that convinced me to “loosen up and have a drink,” and he can be oddly convincing so I joined; turns out I am in fact a lightweight and I’m facing the consequences. I spent the night avoiding the crowd while Jasmine and Lars kept pulling me back into the crowd while I was getting called a “poser” by some random guy because my favorite band is Eagles and not some underground, guttural thrash metal band, and arguing with James. Pretty much everything else was a blur. 

The sound of continuous car horns honking outside and Dave non-stop yelling “Wake up, wake up, waaaakkkeeeee uuuuuuppppp!!” finally got my ass out of bed. I stumble into the living room to see two packed tote bags on the counter, and James leaning against the same counter fidgeting with his rings. 

“What are you doing here?” I say with a scratchy morning voice and already an attitude brewing at the quick sight of him.

“Waiting for you?” He said, scoffing. “We were supposed to leave 20 minutes ago, Giana.”

I pause, a confused face starting to form while I just stare blankly at James and wait for him to tell me what’s going on. He lets out a sigh and says “We’re all going to the beach? It was your idea, said something about shark spotting or shark swimming.” Then it clicked!! There’s a place on the beach by a secluded cliff where you can see and swim with nurse and leopard sharks, so of course, my face lit up almost in a second as I giggled and ran to my room to get ready as fast as possible. I could hear James’ footsteps getting closer to my room as I tried to do my skincare, hair, and get my shit together so we could just go. “Someone’s excited,” he said with a slight smile. I try so hard to be nice to him but everything he says just makes me want to blow my brains out.

“Get out of my room.”

“I’m not in your room?” He was leaning against my dresser? So, yes, he was?

“I have to get changed, get OUT.” He stood there with a smug smile on his stupid face. “What do you want? You’re not allowed to borrow shirts anymore after you stained my Scorpions shirt.”

“I don’t wanna borrow shit, can’t I just stand here?” He wanted something, I just couldn’t figure it out. 

“Is your life goal to annoy me?” 

“Oh, of course it is, Giana. And I'm never gonna stop.” God, that fucking man makes me want to bash his guitar right over her head. Sorry. 

“Alriiiight, I’ll just change in my bathroom since you wanna be a fucking creep,” I said while making my way over to my bathroom, I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my skull as I closed the door. Like, 5 minutes went by and I was finishing up putting my bathing suit on, some short-sleeved compressed bathing suit top and bikini bottoms, and I could hear James fidgeting around with shit in my room. I opened the door and saw him trying on my rings? 

“Can you put them down and stop invading my privacy more than normal?” 

“What are you talking about, Giana? You said I could try your stuff on, do you not remember?” I think he’s sarcastically gaslighting me?

“Okay, shut up and get out now,” I grabbed his shirt collar and started to pull him out of my room. He turned around and latched himself in between my door frame, and  with a big grin on his face, he said “Giana, if you wanted an excuse to get your hands on me, you could’ve just said so. You know I wouldn't say no, pretty girl.” 

“Will you say no if I ask you to shut up or die?”

“Fuck off,” he said while rolling his eyes and walking away, finally. I finished getting ready shortly after and walked into the living room, the tote bags were gone and so were James and Dave; I swear I thought they ditched me til I heard a car horn and Tori yelling “Giana!! Hurry up, we’re losing daylight!!” I rushed downstairs and out to the car, and to my surprise was James leaning on the drivers’ side of my car. I walked over and nudged him, kind of a subtle hint for him to move it.

“Quit it, Gia, I’m driving.” He said, annoyed. 

“Like fuck you are, get off my car, Hetfield.” There’s no way he’s driving my car?? He roughly but not painfully grabbed my arm and said “Like fuck I am. Tori doesn’t trust you driving with someone else in the car at more than 55 miles an hour, especially me, so you’re stuck in the passenger seat, puerquito.” Ever since Jasmine and I met, he’s picked up on some Spanish from eavesdropping on us, and ever since he found out that puerquito means “little pig” in Spanish, he’s been calling me it for months because apparently, I make a mess and defile everywhere I go like a pig. How sweet. 

“Dear God, there’s no way you’re dri-”

“Save it because I am,” he said with the biiiiigest and most obnoxious smile on his face. 

“Do I at least get to pick the music?” I said, hoping I would since I’m not trusted in my own car. 

“Yeah, ‘course. I brought your guitar if you wanna play along too, even if you suck.”

“Okay, asshole, I do not suck?”

“Right, right, I forgot, you swallow.” Face went blank, no one laughed, and I swear I hate him more every second. Before I could respond, Tori yelled at us both to get in the car so we could finally leave. And if I forgot to mention, James is by far the most insufferable person in a car, and even more so when he’s the one driving. He pretends to not pay attention to freak me out, he messes with the stereo, he sometimes misses the exit, he’s just all-around someone you don’t want to be stuck in a car with for more than 10 minutes. And this place was an hour and a half away.

Roughly 30 minutes into the ride there, I’d conned him into listening to Hotel California by Eagles at least 5 times, specifically the cassette that my dad had made for me by using his old tape recorder so I could hear them play live since I wasn’t old enough to go. James tried to weasel his way into changing the tapes but all of my cassettes are stored under the passenger seat for safety when I lock the car at night. “Giana, I’d be on my hands and knees begging for you to change the song if I weren’t fucking driving right now. Just. Change. The. Tape.” I loved being able to aggravate him with no way for him to do anything, he does it all the time so why can’t I?

“Mmmmmm, wonderful offer honestly, but you didn’t even say please?” I playfully taunted him. He tilted his head at me while rolling his eyes, “Change the song, Gia. Please? I can’t take it anymore, both you and the song are giving me a headache, so would you be so kind as to change the song?” He smiled softly before letting out a sigh. 

“Since you asked so kindly, of course I can, James,” I flashed him a smile and went to change the tape, which was unknowingly to him, another Eagles tape.

“Thank you so so much, sweet girl.” Trying not to giggle. “You know how seriously I hate that-” before he could finish, Nightingale by Eagles began playing loudly and I started headbanging softly as soon as it started. “Oh, coooomeeee oooonnn. As if their music isn’t bad enough, you have to go and headbang to it?” 

“You’ll get over it,” I smiled and sang along to the lyrics. 

Finally, after what felt like ten million years, we made it to the spot. Everyone got there before us and since the cliff was a little more hidden, no one was there but us. Tori was rubbing sunscreen over Lars’ already red back, Jasmine was laying her towel down, Grace was off to the side setting up the stereo, Dave was sitting on the edge of the cliff and unaware that Cliff was about to kick him off in a millisecond (it’s not too high up, he’ll hopefully be fine…), and James sat our bags down under some shade of the tree hovering over this secluded little spot. I gave Grace my cassettes and I went back over to quickly get my shoes and cover-up off. Just as I finished taking off my shirt, I turned around and James slammed right into me, his chin hitting my forehead; since I was close to the side-edge of the cliff, I would’ve fallen had he not grabbed my waist and pulled me away. He had a slight look of concern on his face, one hand around my waist, the other moving my bangs out of the way to see if there was a mark. It was all very… much. But a good much. “Shit, you’re bleeding a little. Does it hurt badly?”

“No, no, I’m fine, James-” he touched it and it stung, so as a human reaction, I winced. 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he said while giggling a little. Tori, Jasmine, and Lars were all very obviously staring while James used his thumb to wipe off the blood, everyone else was just minding their own (which is what they should’ve been doing as well, those invasive little shits.). “What? What’s wrong?” He turned to look at what was making me hold back laughter, and saw them staring shamelessly. 

“Get a room, you gross gremlins,” Tori said, making Jasmine and Lars burst out laughing. 

“Oh, come on, guys. I was just trying to be-” 

“Save it, twink!” Jasmine said in instant rebuttal to James” attempt at defending his relatively flirty actions. 

We all laughed it off (except James) and moved on with our exciting day. After a few minutes, I went over to the edge of the cliff after everyone jumped off; Lars grabbed Tori and they dove in together, Dave failed an attempt at a cannonball, Cliff had to quietly convince Grace to join in since she was invested in a Vogue magazine and had her walkman on full blast, Jasmine did a run and jump, and all that was left was me and James. “You gonna go or you just gonna stand there and be a pussy?” James asked, teasingly.

“Ha ha,” I laughed sarcastically. “For your information, I’ve never cliff-dived before, so my bad if I’m a little nervous.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up and just go before I push you in.”

“Do not.”

“Then go.” I was debating whether I should let him or not since it would take me another 10 minutes of convincing to jump off a 30 foot cliff. It was a little laughable that this was my idea, but in my solid defense, I didn’t know it was this high. “Taking so much time to make a little jump off a little cliff, Miss Vázquez. Need my help?” He sarcastically asked while staring at me.

“No, no, I can d-”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, took too long to answer, so you’re coming with me,” and my life flashed before my eyes as he wrapped his arms fully around me with full force and dove off the cliff with me. It’s easy and obvious to say that day was not quiet like I was anticipating, but in fact full of him getting on my nerves and not letting me have a moment of serenity. I fell asleep on the ride home while “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” by Eagles played quietly in the back.

working on the next chapter :)

[megadethz]

Hello! I’m cloudy, I like writing either smut or fluffy. I only take requests for bands such as Megadeth, Metallica, Motley Crue, Or Guns and Roses. I will usually post head-cannons mixed with some fan fics! So you can request anything you want wether it’s a specific kink you have or just anything. If you request a story then make sure you give a summary for it and the person you want me to make it based off, also tell me if you want your name in it or if you want it to be reader based! - Cloudy.

[meikadonnelly]

{introduction}

hi, i'm mimi, i'm 16, from australia and i write fan-fiction one shots, head cannons and multi part stories. my favourite bands are motley crue and guns n roses. my favourite members are nikki sixx and izzy stradlin if you couldn't already tell.

{who i write for}

motley crue

^nikki sixx * ^tommy lee * ^mick mars * ^vince neil

guns n roses

^izzy stradlin * ^duff mckagen ^slash

metallica

^james hetfield ^kirk hammett

queen

^freddie mercury * ^brian may ^john deacon ^roger taylor

{notes}

+if a story has any mature themes, they will be named with a trigger warning for reader safety.

+i know much more about certain people which means their chapters will most likely be more detailed, and this is why for some bands, i do not write for all members. this doesn't mean they won't be included in other member's chapters. (people who i believe i will be better at writing for will have a star next to their name)

+as said before^, certain people will have a stronger storyline to others, however, this doesn't mean that I will only put effort into some and not others.

+the more detail in the requests, the better, as i want to create a clear and accurate piece.

+i write all types of fan-fiction, whether it is angst, fluff etc. keep in mind that i may turn some requests down if i am not comfortable writing it for you.

[therippers]

you know guys

if i would write an ff with kirk hammett, would u read that?

bc i have a story in my head, so now i'm just wondering

[tiesandtea]

Suede fell out of bed into Britpop and Britpop controversy about Blur and bisexuality and who was doing what to who in what direction, but between episodes of public drama was glammy rock ‘n’ roll in the most classic English tradition. After years off duty, Suede is substantially re-united (without Bernard) and active and playing their first stateside gig at Coachella. 

An interview with Brett Anderson by Chris Ziegler. L.A. Record, 15 April 2011.

How did Suede and Metallica ever get together for all-night rock sessions? Brett Anderson: Our press agent sorta said, ‘Hey, Kirk Hammett is a big fan— should we get you together?’ So we went out to San Francisco to Kirk’s place and spent a lot of time being a bit naughty and playing songs in his basement. He had a studio—a little bit of a jamming room. I remember running through ‘Metal Mickey,’ we did a bit of T. Rex—we were off our faces, anyway. He’s a nice chap!

Kirk said he was struck by how normal you were and how you didn’t spank your buttocks once. I should have spanked my buttocks. He was probably very disappointed. ‘This can’t be the real Brett Anderson. He’s not spanking his buttocks.’

What Crass lyric is so close to the front of your mind at all times that you can sing it to me right this second? ‘Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!’ I love Crass. Feeding of the 5,000 was one of my favorite records growing up. I love that record. I love all the artwork. Talking about bands that draw you into a world—Crass really created their world, and it was a really confrontational, intelligent, political world. I really responded to it as a young teenager.

What part of the Crass ethos do you hold most dear? I don’t live on a commune in Essex. But it opened my eyes—if it’s done right—how powerful political music can be. I never wrote overtly political music, but I did write music that dealt with not like party politics, but themes of poverty and alienation and I used that in songs—that was possibly inspired by Crass.

How was Suede a political band? Dealing with the politics of life. Setting our songs in a real social context. I never wanted to be a writer who waved flags for a political party, but listening to the songs you can tell I was brought up as a member of the working-class, and you can tell the songs have a very strong left-wing bias.

You said you felt there hasn’t been a definitive genre of music invented in the U.K. in the last decade, and that you feel music is meant more to placate than provoke now. Why? I do very much feel that’s the state of things. I can’t see that the last decade has created its own genre, which is a terrible shame for that generation. Not to say there hasn’t been great music. There’s amazing music! I love discovering new bands and there’s a great wave of new bands. But the biggest cultural development of the last like ten years was computer technology. It wasn’t anything to do with art and music, and that’s a shame. Even in the 90s, we had dance music—definitely a 90s genre. Maybe people have become too knowing. There’s too much of a structured sense of what’s cool and what isn’t, and that comes from magazines constantly publishing lists which contain the same five Beatles albums and this kind of thing. There’s this constant pressure to comply with this very sort of rigid set of accepted rock albums. So bands are too afraid to go outside those reference points. I sense this real fear in the music industry. A lot of it is because the industry has become a lot more corporate. People won’t take risks anymore. In the early 90s—that’s the only time I can talk about because that’s when I started—magazines were putting unusual bands on the cover. Magazines put Suede on covers before anyone had ever heard of us. Commercially, that was very ill-advised—but at least it suggested they had a sense of purpose. Now I get the sense people only back who they think are gonna win, regardless of if they actually think it’s any good or not. They will back who they think are the winners, and they will write good reviews for the bands they think are gonna sell lots of records whether they like them or not, and I think that’s a fucking terrible way to be. People are too afraid of not being cool? Or getting it wrong? No one’s willing to get it wrong. No one’s willing to stick their neck out and become a hated figure. No one’s got that kind of confidence. Everyone’s too willing to comply. It’s a terrible thing. But things go in cycles, don’t they? Maybe it’ll move into another period where people are taking chances.

When is the last time you suffered Stendhal syndrome? At the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I was looking at the Toulouse-Lautrecs, which were absolutely amazing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec before, but seeing the paintings in the flesh—as it were—is just so amazingly powerful. They’re so beautifully observed. I’m not sure if I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome, but I’ve read about it and it’s an extreme reaction to beauty—that’s the closest I can imagine it to be.

What’s it actually feel like? Like drinking too much coffee. Slightly restless euphoria. Or maybe I’m getting it confused with actually drinking too much coffee. I’m a huge fan of art . I spend a lot of time in galleries and that’s my favorite period of art as well—the post-Impressionists. Paul Gauguin and those artists. I love all the medieval painters as well. People like Bruegel and Cranach and Holbein. There’s something incredibly primitive about it—Bruegel’s ‘Return of the Hunters’ is so atmospheric. What I really like about Holbein is he’s such an amazing draftsman and a great observer of human features. He could completely capture a person. You’re looking at someone who lived 500 years ago but it could be someone passing you on the street. They’re so real. I love that about Holbein’s paintings.

Did you want to try and observe things that carefully in Suede songs? It’s difficult in the framework of pop music. It isn’t a very subtle medium. It doesn’t have as much as fiction or fine art. You’re in a very rigid structure—melody and rhyme and rhythm and those things are constricting you. I don’t think pop writers can ever take it to that depth of observation. But what pop writers can do is engage at an emotional level that other artists can’t do. The pop song, when done right, is incredibly powerful. That’s partly to do with the simplicity as well. Truth in music is incredibly important, but artifice can be incred- ibly important as well—that’s something I’ve done quite consciously. Lots of the songs I’ve written for Suede have been deliberately superficial but perversely enough there’s a kind of truth in that. A sketch is powerful because you fill in the missing pieces. You fill in the framework yourself. If it’s too full, there’s no space for you to interpret it.

Francis Bacon said, ‘The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.’ Absolutely. One of the most important quotes ever about creativity. Something I’ve learned through mistakes over the years is it shouldn’t be too clear what you’re doing. Sometimes the sketch is so powerful because of the room for interpretation. As soon as you know what something is about, it somehow kills the mystery. And mystery is so important in music. That allows the song to have life beyond what it was intended for. When a writer’s writing, they have a very specific thing in mind, but they don’t know about the life of the listener. The listener applies his life to the music and there’s a new interpretation. That’s why a good song has so much power. It reaches into people’s lives. But to do that, there needs to be a sense of mystery. I’ve always tried to do that with detail. There’s this whole thing with great songwriters saying songs should be universal, but I actually think songs should be opposite—strangely specific and set in a place to make them real. I mean, still allow space for interpretation.

You said once that Suede writes about the used condom, not the beautiful bed. That kind of detail? That’s not my favorite quote I ever said—but it keeps coming back. It must resonate with people’s vision of what the band is about. It’s quite a crass way of saying it, but I suppose it’s got some sort of truth. I always wanted to document the sort of grubby side of life. I didn’t want to talk in rock cliché. ‘Baby, I love you!’ clichés. I wanted to sing about the world I saw around me, and the world I saw around me was the used condom. It was the dusty street, the flickering TV. It was that use of detail and the fact I was born in the U.K. that made me write about the U.K. in detail, and it became distorted into the cliché of what became Britpop later—but it was never this nationalistic, jingoistic intention. It was just a desire to write about the world I saw around me.

Did you have to feel like you were living a Suede song to write a Suede song? I don’t feel I deliberately changed my lifestyle. But I didn’t rein myself in. I felt justified in writing what I was writing—the right thing to do for my artistic vision was live the lifestyle I was singing about, but it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. I was living that, obviously. But you can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive. Things have to change. I championed—well, I documented it, and then you realize that what you’re documenting is quite harmful.

Did you think you were going to end up on a prison ship like Dan Treacy? Well, toward the end of the 90s, things started getting quite dark. Life was definitely changing. I thought, ‘Well, maybe we need to veer away from something.’ I always feel I’m slightly on dodgy ground when people talk about this whole concept of the artist as a damaged character—it’s such a powerful cliché that people really wanna believe in, and I think there’s so much great art made through clarity and sobriety. The damaged artist casts a huge shadow people sometimes can’t see beyond. Me personally, as an artist now I feel much more in control of my art. Much more driven. Certainly more than I did ten years ago. But people need to believe in that sort of figure.

Jason Pierce said he started Spacemen 3 because of people like Roky Erickson and Alex Chilton—that he felt he could do what they did because they were flawed and not professional and perfect. It’s the ultimate DIY ethic, isn’t it? The ultimate punk thing? Saying it doesn’t matter how incapable or damaged or all these pejorative adjectives you wanna apply—not you can still create art, but it almost makes your art more interesting or valid or gives it an edge you wouldn’t have if you weren’t damaged? Someone like Ian Dury—the ‘cripple as artist.’ It gives the audience a fascination, I think.

You said you were making music to find community in a fucked-up world. Did you ever find that community? It’s always a search for some sort of community, isn’t it? There’s a line from one of the old songs, ‘New Generation.’ ‘We take the pills to find each other.’ A search for human … ownership or whatever. I don’t know. It’s strange to say because I’ve always conducted my career and Suede’s career almost as outsiders. I’ve never felt accepted by the music industry. I still don’t. I’ve never felt part of any sort of gang, and I never really wanted to be part of any gang. The only gang I’m part of is this weird disparate group of non-members—the ‘others’—and I’m quite happy in that role as well. I don’t jealously look at other people’s lives and wish I could be like that. I don’t have that search for community I used to have— maybe I realized the reality of things.

Does that mean it’s not out there? That it was never there? Can bands create these communities anymore? That’s the definition of a decent band. They create a community. When I answered your question, it was in a personal sense. Whether I’ve found a community. But hopefully Suede as a band created a community. That was one of our real intentions—I loved bands like the Smiths who had this world you went into, with the sleeves and the reference points. You very much immersed yourself. I wanted Suede to have that sense as well. Almost a strong Suede way of being. The Suede army, as someone once said.

If you didn’t find community, what did you find? It made my life. It gave me all those things we were talking about earlier. It gave me everything. Gave me purpose in life. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to do what I did! I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career. 99 percent of people who go into music won’t be as lucky. It is a lot to do with luck! The fact I’ve met Bernard Butler—little things! I might never have met him, and we never would have written those songs and Suede would have been a very different band. I never just say, ‘This is what you should do!’ I was just confident and stupid enough to do what I did, and it just sort of worked! But some of the decisions I made—they were pretty rash!

Is it necessary to commit totally to being creative to be good at being creative? To jump in with no safety net? Absolutely. You’ve gotta let yourself out there. I didn’t even have an instrument to fall back on! ‘I believe I got enough of a voice to say something interesting, and I’m gonna do it.’ Confidence verging on stupidity that happened to pay off!

Does pop music defend the brave and stupid? I think so. You have to push it as far as it’ll go. Part of the reason the public loves pop music so much is the drama of the story. You have people who have no idea about the drama and just wanna listen to Phil Collins records and that’s fine, but there’s a whole other group of people that love the back story—how it’s made and why people fall out and fall in love. It’s almost treating the world of music like you’re watching a soap opera and people love that.

Why do people fall in love? Probably some sort of chemical function. I don’t wanna be unromantic about it but it fulfills a necessary function for the human race.

[kalluun-patangaroa]

SUEDE: SLIGHTLY RESTLESS EUPHORIA

April 15th, 2011 

Illustration by Amber Halford

Suede fell out of bed into Britpop and Britpop controversy about Blur and bisexuality and who was doing what to who in what direction, but between episodes of public drama was glammy rock ‘n’ roll in the most classic English tradition. After years off duty, Suede is substantially re-united (without Bernard) and active and playing their first stateside gig at Coachella. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

How did Suede and Metallica ever get together for all-night rock sessions?

Brett Anderson (vocals): Our press agent sorta said, ‘Hey, Kirk Hammett is a big fan— should we get you together?’ So we went out to San Francisco to Kirk’s place and spent a lot of time being a bit naughty and playing songs in his basement. He had a studio—a little bit of a jamming room. I remember running through ‘Metal Mickey,’ we did a bit of T. Rex—we were off our faces, anyway. He’s a nice chap!

Kirk said he was struck by how normal you were and how you didn’t spank your buttocks once.

I should have spanked my buttocks. He was probably very disappointed. ‘This can’t be the real Brett Anderson. He’s not spanking his buttocks.’

What Crass lyric is so close to the front of your mind at all times that you can sing it to me right this second?

‘Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!’ I love Crass. Feeding of the 5,000 was one of my favorite records growing up. I love that record. I love all the artwork. Talking about bands that draw you into a world—Crass really created their world, and it was a really confrontational, intelligent, political world. I really responded to it as a young teenager.

What part of the Crass ethos do you hold most dear?

I don’t live on a commune in Essex. But it opened my eyes—if it’s done right—how powerful political music can be. I never wrote overtly political music, but I did write music that dealt with not like party politics, but themes of poverty and alienation and I used that in songs—that was possibly inspired by Crass.

How was Suede a political band?

Dealing with the politics of life. Setting our songs in a real social context. I never wanted to be a writer who waved flags for a political party, but listening to the songs you can tell I was brought up as a member of the working-class, and you can tell the songs have a very strong left-wing bias.

You said you felt there hasn’t been a definitive genre of music invented in the U.K. in the last decade, and that you feel music is meant more to placate than provoke now. Why?

I do very much feel that’s the state of things. I can’t see that the last decade has created its own genre, which is a terrible shame for that generation. Not to say there hasn’t been great music. There’s amazing music! I love discovering new bands and there’s a great wave of new bands. But the biggest cultural development of the last like ten years was computer technology. It wasn’t anything to do with art and music, and that’s a shame. Even in the 90s, we had dance music—definitely a 90s genre. Maybe people have become too knowing. There’s too much of a structured sense of what’s cool and what isn’t, and that comes from magazines constantly publishing lists which contain the same five Beatles albums and this kind of thing. There’s this constant pressure to comply with this very sort of rigid set of accepted rock albums. So bands are too afraid to go outside those reference points. I sense this real fear in the music industry. A lot of it is because the industry has become a lot more corporate. People won’t take risks anymore. In the early 90s—that’s the only time I can talk about because that’s when I started—magazines were putting unusual bands on the cover. Magazines put Suede on covers before anyone had ever heard of us. Commercially, that was very ill-advised—but at least it suggested they had a sense of purpose. Now I get the sense people only back who they think are gonna win, regardless of if they actually think it’s any good or not. They will back who they think are the winners, and they will write good reviews for the bands they think are gonna sell lots of records whether they like them or not, and I think that’s a fucking terrible way to be. People are too afraid of not being cool? Or getting it wrong? No one’s willing to get it wrong. No one’s willing to stick their neck out and become a hated figure. No one’s got that kind of confidence. Everyone’s too willing to comply. It’s a terrible thing. But things go in cycles, don’t they? Maybe it’ll move into another period where people are taking chances.

When is the last time you suffered Stendhal syndrome?

At the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I was looking at the Toulouse-Lautrecs, which were absolutely amazing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec before, but seeing the paintings in the flesh—as it were—is just so amazingly powerful. They’re so beautifully observed. I’m not sure if I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome, but I’ve read about it and it’s an extreme reaction to beauty—that’s the closest I can imagine it to be.

What’s it actually feel like?

Like drinking too much coffee. Slightly restless euphoria. Or maybe I’m getting it confused with actually drinking too much coffee. I’m a huge fan of art . I spend a lot of time in galleries and that’s my favorite period of art as well—the post-Impressionists. Paul Gauguin and those artists. I love all the medieval painters as well. People like Bruegel and Cranach and Holbein. There’s something incredibly primitive about it—Bruegel’s ‘Return of the Hunters’ is so atmospheric. What I really like about Holbein is he’s such an amazing draftsman and a great observer of human features. He could completely capture a person. You’re looking at someone who lived 500 years ago but it could be someone passing you on the street. They’re so real. I love that about Holbein’s paintings.

Did you want to try and observe things that carefully in Suede songs?

It’s difficult in the framework of pop music. It isn’t a very subtle medium. It doesn’t have as much as fiction or fine art. You’re in a very rigid structure—melody and rhyme and rhythm and those things are constricting you. I don’t think pop writers can ever take it to that depth of observation. But what pop writers can do is engage at an emotional level that other artists can’t do. The pop song, when done right, is incredibly powerful. That’s partly to do with the simplicity as well. Truth in music is incredibly important, but artifice can be incred- ibly important as well—that’s something I’ve done quite consciously. Lots of the songs I’ve written for Suede have been deliberately superficial but perversely enough there’s a kind of truth in that. A sketch is powerful because you fill in the missing pieces. You fill in the framework yourself. If it’s too full, there’s no space for you to interpret it.

Francis Bacon said, ‘The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.’

Absolutely. One of the most important quotes ever about creativity. Something I’ve learned through mistakes over the years is it shouldn’t be too clear what you’re doing. Sometimes the sketch is so powerful because of the room for interpretation. As soon as you know what something is about, it somehow kills the mystery. And mystery is so important in music. That allows the song to have life beyond what it was intended for. When a writer’s writing, they have a very specific thing in mind, but they don’t know about the life of the listener. The listener applies his life to the music and there’s a new interpretation. That’s why a good song has so much power. It reaches into people’s lives. But to do that, there needs to be a sense of mystery. I’ve always tried to do that with detail. There’s this whole thing with great songwriters saying songs should be universal, but I actually think songs should be opposite—strangely specific and set in a place to make them real. I mean, still allow space for interpretation.

You said once that Suede writes about the used condom, not the beautiful bed. That kind of detail?

That’s not my favorite quote I ever said—but it keeps coming back. It must resonate with people’s vision of what the band is about. It’s quite a crass way of saying it, but I suppose it’s got some sort of truth. I always wanted to document the sort of grubby side of life. I didn’t want to talk in rock cliché. ‘Baby, I love you!’ clichés. I wanted to sing about the world I saw around me, and the world I saw around me was the used condom. It was the dusty street, the flickering TV. It was that use of detail and the fact I was born in the U.K. that made me write about the U.K. in detail, and it became distorted into the cliché of what became Britpop later—but it was never this nationalistic, jingoistic intention. It was just a desire to write about the world I saw around me.

Did you have to feel like you were living a Suede song to write a Suede song?

I don’t feel I deliberately changed my lifestyle. But I didn’t rein myself in. I felt justified in writing what I was writing—the right thing to do for my artistic vision was live the lifestyle I was singing about, but it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. I was living that, obviously. But you can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive. Things have to change. I championed—well, I documented it, and then you realize that what you’re documenting is quite harmful.

Did you think you were going to end up on a prison ship like Dan Treacy?

Well, toward the end of the 90s, things started getting quite dark. Life was definitely changing. I thought, ‘Well, maybe we need to veer away from something.’ I always feel I’m slightly on dodgy ground when people talk about this whole concept of the artist as a damaged character—it’s such a powerful cliché that people really wanna believe in, and I think there’s so much great art made through clarity and sobriety. The damaged artist casts a huge shadow people sometimes can’t see beyond. Me personally, as an artist now I feel much more in control of my art. Much more driven. Certainly more than I did ten years ago. But people need to believe in that sort of figure.

Jason Pierce said he started Spacemen 3 because of people like Roky Erickson and Alex Chilton—that he felt he could do what they did because they were flawed and not professional and perfect.

It’s the ultimate DIY ethic, isn’t it? The ultimate punk thing? Saying it doesn’t matter how incapable or damaged or all these pejorative adjectives you wanna apply—not you can still create art, but it almost makes your art more interesting or valid or gives it an edge you wouldn’t have if you weren’t damaged? Someone like Ian Dury—the ‘cripple as artist.’ It gives the audience a fascination, I think.

You said you were making music to find community in a fucked-up world. Did you ever find that community?

It’s always a search for some sort of community, isn’t it? There’s a line from one of the old songs, ‘New Generation.’ ‘We take the pills to find each other.’ A search for human … ownership or whatever. I don’t know. It’s strange to say because I’ve always conducted my career and Suede’s career almost as outsiders. I’ve never felt accepted by the music industry. I still don’t. I’ve never felt part of any sort of gang, and I never really wanted to be part of any gang. The only gang I’m part of is this weird disparate group of non-members—the ‘others’—and I’m quite happy in that role as well. I don’t jealously look at other people’s lives and wish I could be like that. I don’t have that search for community I used to have— maybe I realized the reality of things.

Does that mean it’s not out there? That it was never there? Can bands create these communities anymore?

That’s the definition of a decent band. They create a community. When I answered your question, it was in a personal sense. Whether I’ve found a community. But hopefully Suede as a band created a community. That was one of our real intentions—I loved bands like the Smiths who had this world you went into, with the sleeves and the reference points. You very much immersed yourself. I wanted Suede to have that sense as well. Almost a strong Suede way of being. The Suede army, as someone once said.

If you didn’t find community, what did you find?

It made my life. It gave me all those things we were talking about earlier. It gave me everything. Gave me purpose in life. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to do what I did! I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career. 99 percent of people who go into music won’t be as lucky. It is a lot to do with luck! The fact I’ve met Bernard Butler—little things! I might never have met him, and we never would have written those songs and Suede would have been a very different band. I never just say, ‘This is what you should do!’ I was just confident and stupid enough to do what I did, and it just sort of worked! But some of the decisions I made—they were pretty rash!

Is it necessary to commit totally to being creative to be good at being creative? To jump in with no safety net?

Absolutely. You’ve gotta let yourself out there. I didn’t even have an instrument to fall back on! ‘I believe I got enough of a voice to say something interesting, and I’m gonna do it.’ Confidence verging on stupidity that happened to pay off!

Does pop music defend the brave and stupid?

I think so. You have to push it as far as it’ll go. Part of the reason the public loves pop music so much is the drama of the story. You have people who have no idea about the drama and just wanna listen to Phil Collins records and that’s fine, but there’s a whole other group of people that love the back story—how it’s made and why people fall out and fall in love. It’s almost treating the world of music like you’re watching a soap opera and people love that.

Why do people fall in love?

Probably some sort of chemical function. I don’t wanna be unromantic about it but it fulfills a necessary function for the human race.

L.A. Record (US Magazine), April 2011

[dermontag]

Klangwelten mit der Gitarre Joe Satriani lässt die Elefanten los 11.04.2022, 19:15 Uhr Er hat Superstars wie Metallicas Kirk Hammett das Gitarrespielen gelehrt. Doch auch Joe Satriani selbst steht seit Jahrzehnten im Rampenlicht. Mit "The Elephants Of Mars" hat der Saiten-Virtuose nun sein sage und schreibe 19. Studioalbum veröffentlicht, auf dem er Emotionen greifbar macht. Sein Name und vor allem seine Finger auf den Saiten lassen Gitarrenliebhaber schwärmen. Joe Satriani zählt zur Elite der Rockgitarristen. Mit instrumentalen Geniestreichen wie "Surfing With The Alien", "Flying In A Blue Dream" oder "If I Could Fly", bei dem sich die Band Coldplay für ihren Hit "Viva La Vida" bedient haben soll, verzückt der US-Amerikaner seit Jahrzehnten seine Fans. "The Elephants Of Mars" ist nach offizieller Zählung - eine EP mitgerechnet - das 19. Studioalbum des 65 Jahre alten Virtuosen, der in San Francisco lebt. Schon die ersten Takte von "Sahara" sind unverkennbar "Satch", wie er von Fans und Freunden genannt wird - als würde seine Gitarre sprechen. Einen Sänger braucht Satriani, der auch schon Mitglied von Deep Purple war und mit Van-Halen-Frontmann Sammy Hagar die Supergroup Chickenfoot gründete, auf Soloscheiben nicht. Jeder Song auf dem Album schafft eine eigene Klangwelt. Im Titelstück meint man die Elefanten tatsächlich trampeln und tröten zu hören. Futuristisch klingende Effekte liefern dazu die Mars-Kulisse - eine typische Satriani-Spielerei. Weltraum-Feeling gibt es auch bei "Sailing The Seas Of Ganymede" und "Through A Mother’s Day Darkly", das Sprachpassagen enthält, die nach Science-Fiction-Filmen klingen. Zwischen allen Genres Mit Texten muss sich Satriani als Instrumentalist zwar kaum befassen. Trotzdem sind die Emotionen in seinen Songs oft greifbar, wie etwa in der Ballade "Faceless". "Das ist ein ernstes Lied", erzählt der Musiker im Video zum Album. "Manchmal trennen sich die Menschen, weil sie Dinge unterschiedlich sehen - Religion, Politik, Stil, Musik -, anstatt sich darauf zu konzentrieren, was sie gemeinsam haben. Und wenn sie das machen, dann werden sie gesichtslos." Der 65-Jährige springt locker zwischen Genres wie Psychedelic ("Doors Of Perception"), Jazz ("E 104th St NYC 1973") oder Funkrock ("Pumpin'") hin und her. Er wolle zeigen, dass instrumentale Gitarrenalben "unterhaltender und kreativer sein können, als die Leute denken", sagt der ehemalige Gitarrenlehrer von Kirk Hammett (Metallica) und Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine). Das gelingt Joe Satriani auf "The Elephants Of Mars" einmal mehr.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Metallica Through the Never

This review was originally published on September 28, 2013 and is being republished for Women Writers Week.

Metallica doesn't do anything small. Their songs are relentless assaults of sound, sometimes topping the 8 or 9-minute mark. It's not a surprise then that "Metallica: Through the Never," their 3-D IMAX concert film/apocalyptic Mad Max story, directed by Nimród Antal, is a gigantic spectacle, a virtual-reality experience that is both ridiculous and sublime, sometimes in the same moment.

The band members, lead singer/guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, and bassist Robert Trujillo, came up with the concept, giving it a personal stamp which longtime Metallica fans will recognize. The Metallica concert in the film features laser beams, a Tesla coil shooting actual lightning bolts through the air, a gigantic statue of Lady Justice which crumbles to bits around the band members, white crosses emerging from beneath the stage floor, dry ice…the only thing missing from that arena stage is an 18-inch tall Stone Henge. Meanwhile, there's a fictional storyline that runs alongside the concert: a young roadie named Trip (Dane DeHaan) is sent on an important mission to retrieve a bag needed by the band. "Metallica: Through the Never" moves back and forth, from concert to Trip and back.

The concert was filmed at Rexall Place, an arena in Edmonton, Alberta. The stage is huge and cross-shaped, with Lars Ulrich's drum set placed in the transept. The three other guys wander around freely, sometimes meeting up, but mostly facing out, communicating with the masses of gyrating fans. Twenty-four cameras were used, and cinematographer Gyula Pados brings us in close enough that we can almost feel the sweat flying off of Trujillo's long hair as he spins his head, and also pulls us back, way back, to give a sense of the sheer scope of the production and the audience. The fans are packed in tight, pushing against the barriers near the stage, pulsing their arms in the air. The effect of all of this is so visceral and immediate that it really is the next best thing to being there.

Cutting away from the concert to follow Trip's attempt to retrieve the missing bag is a risky device and doesn't work initially, because the concert is so engrossing you resent being made to leave it. But it grew on me as the film progressed, and ended up having a startlingly emotional resonance by the closing shots of the film. Here's what happens. Trip takes off in a battered van to go get this missing bag. Civilization appears to have broken down. Cars are on fire. Riot police and mobs face off. People are strung up from lampposts and dangle in the wind. (There's a reason "Metallica: Through the Never" is rated R.) Trip finds himself singled out by the mob. A literal horseman of the Apocalypse, wielding a gigantic mallet and wearing a gas mask, gallops after him. Trip is beaten up, set on fire, dragged behind a horse, chased through dark alleys. What is in the bag that Metallica needs? Well, if you've seen your Hitchcock, then you know that doesn't matter.

All of these scenes are tied thematically to Metallica's concert song list, which span the 30 years of Metallica's career, from early songs like "Creeping Death," to later songs like "Cyanide." All the major hits are covered: "Master of Puppets," "One," "The Memory Remains," "Enter Sandman," "And Justice For All," "Battery," "Nothing Else Matters." Metallica's music is not light. They are not carefree guys. Even their ballads are gloomy. Trip's struggle to survive in a violent dystopian world is reflective not only of Metallica's most common themes, but also echoes what the music actually sounds like. Metallica's music is fast, aggressive, and demanding. As macho as Metallica's collective stage presence is, what they tap into is a very dark place where they are alone, helpless, and isolated. Music critic Steve Huey once observed that "in one way or another, nearly every song on 'Master of Puppets' deals with the fear of powerlessness." That's where the rage comes from.

Trip, as played by Dane DeHaan, is a skinny kid in black jeans and a hoodie. He is overwhelmed by forces larger than him. He is not physically strong. He is an outcast. James Hetfield may be a tattooed rock god, wearing all black and a bullet belt, stalking around on a stage the size of St. John the Divine like he owns the joint, but he still identifies with guys like Trip. He identifies with the outcasts, the scared kids of the world ("Enter Sandman." their most famous song, features a child's voice praying), and Trip is the stand-in for all kids who feel like they don't fit in, who are scared and feel powerless, who find strength in music like Metallica's. That's when the device stopped feeling like a device and felt like an expression of the band's identification with its own fan base, with the guys they used to be.

It was 1983 when Metallica's first album came out, a year where The Police and Michael Jackson dominated the pop charts. Heavy metal fans were part of a vibrant underground scene, where bootleg cassette tapes were passed around. Metallica are Rock and Roll Hall of Famers now. Their actions (and albums) have not always pleased their hard-core fan base. Remember when they sued Napster? Remember "Load," their sixth album, seen by many fans as a betrayal of what the band was all about? Some of the oldest fans think Metallica sold out with what is known as "the black album." These things are still being argued about on heavy metal websites and fan forums. And then of course, they all went into therapy in order to heal the rifts in their relationships, a process documented in the fascinating 2004 documentary "Some Kind of Monster." The album that resulted from that therapy process, "St. Anger," received mixed reviews but still sold millions of copies. You can see that up-and-down journey in the concert itself, as technical snafus threaten to derail the whole thing, forcing the band to go back to basics.

Some of the best moments in the film involve footage of the concert audience. There is one audience member I keep remembering, and he appears for only a second. He was pushed up against the barrier. He had his shirt off, like a lot of the guys did, and his arms were in the air, eyes closed, lost to everything else but that immediate moment. There are millions more of him around the world. And there were thousands more in that arena. The sound of the audience singing along is so powerful it sounds like a political rally about to turn violent. Even James Hetfield at one point seems a bit taken aback at the collective sound of thousands of people singing his lyrics. At the end of the film, during the credits, the words "To the Metallica Family of Fans" scroll by on the screen. "Metallica: Through the Never" is a vehicle that could reach a new generation of fans, who wouldn't even know what the term "bootleg cassette tape" meant, but know great music when they hear it.

With all of the dazzling special effects "Metallica Through the Never" offers, and with all of the violent encounters poor fictional Trip experiences, it's that shirtless fan, arms raised, that encapsulates what the film is all about, encapsulates what Metallica is all about. To paraphrase one of Metallica's most famous lyrics, that's the memory that remains.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2TbOZAd

[giadavazquez1963]

!! dr based fic info ༊*·˚

hi guys!! i'm so excited that the wheels are finally turning on this fic!! i'm gonna put some basic info yk oc, love interest, trope, place in the band, etc!! fyi idk how many chapters itll be, and the ending probably wont be based off my fic entirely depending on if i want to write that much yk, but i'll see as i go :) !! it's set in march 1983 when i first shift!! things will be a bit more sped up for plot purposes n bc im impatient here, but sadly i have to be patient in my dr 😒 moving on!!

└── •✧• ──┘

!! pov, plot and timeline ༊*·˚

it's in the first person point of view, so for example: "i woke up and went to work" does that make sense? the plot is set in march 1983, well after the move from new york to san francisco with my best friend, dave mustaine.

!! original character info ༊*·˚

name and dob: giana vázquez ┊march 20th, 1963 job: waitress at marco's diner band info: 2nd lead guitarist and vocals in metallica appearance and personality: 5'2, mid-size, black square-ish glasses, dark brown short (but also not?) hair with shaved sides, dark brown eyes, nose hoop and vertical labret piercing, and a gummy-ish smile!! personality is more unfiltered but not mean unless needed, subtly sarcastic, and very kind hearted (not to james).

└── •✧• ──┘

!! main people, other original characters, and love interest info ༊*·˚

dave mustaine: childhood best friend, ex boyfriend, and roommate tori hetfield: best friend, james' twin sister, and metallica's manager jasmine prince: best friend, tech support, and co-manager with tori molly brezowski: best friend, coworker, and tech support lars ulrich: best friend (basically platonic soulmate) cliff burton: best friend and professional pancake lover kirk hammett (haven't met yet): best friend and slash: close friend and ex "fling" nikki sixx: close friend and ex boyfriend

!! love interest info ༊*·˚

my love interest is james hetfield (duh), it's a genuine love hate situation. the trope is enemies to lovers, it's a bit of a slow burn in my dr, but for the fic i plan on speeding it up. despite hating each other, we're still friends and bandmates, of course there's subtle and sometimes blunt flirting, but more on his side than mine. hatred aside, it's the kind of "you came?" "you called" kinda thing, he'll say he hates me and i hate him, but it's his room i go to when i wake up from a nightmare, it's him who i sing my songs to, it's me who he comes to when he's stressed beyond his eyeballs, it's me who he comes to for help with a riff or solo. we hate each other publicly, but privately, it's just different but not? the tension has always been there since we met, but it keeps getting thicker as we spend more time together, whether in rehearsal or in our apartments or hanging out together. it doesn't matter what i say, sober or drunk, i do hate his guts. but when all is said and done, he's there.

└── •✧• ──┘

i hope this was a well explained intro post and i'm so excited to get to writing :))

[thisdaynews]

The Strange, Nostalgic World of Obama-Biden Fan Fiction

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-strange-nostalgic-world-of-obama-biden-fan-fiction/

The Strange, Nostalgic World of Obama-Biden Fan Fiction

Those who choose to live in clinical denial, ahoy! This is a no-judgment zone, in which you will be urged to forget the current American president’s name—and instead enjoy escapist fan fiction about Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Yes, there is such a thing. Past presidential fanfic masterworks—like “Kim Jong Elmo vs Dick Cheney and George Bush featuring Lapis Lazuli”—might have been relegated to online speakeasies, but so great is thenostalgie d’Obamathat new books about Barry and Joe are bringing fanfic’s nerdy tropes into the light of day in print.

Story Continued Below

Parodist Andrew Shaffer has just added a new entry to his enjoyably ludicrous Obama-Biden series, which launched last year withHope Never Diesand features the duo solving mysteries together. The second entry, published in July, is called, you guessed it,Hope Rides Again.Indie director Adam Reid’s gonzo graphic confection,The Adventures of Barry & Joe, which styles Obama and Biden as time-traveling superheroes, was released this past spring. It is here to, if not to save the day, then at least demonstrate the life-changing magic of putting our heads under the covers and pretending it’s 2015.

I respect you if you refuse to look back and entertain fantasies that Obama and Biden might return to deliver the Republic from evil. Biden on the 2020 stump might wield Obama’s name like a talisman to protect himself from criticism, but all sane voters know the Joe-Barack heyday is never coming back.

Still, tucking into the fantasies of Reid, a filmmaker whose 2010 filmHello Lonesomewas a festival darling, and Shaffer, a novelist who teaches writing in Kentucky, I decided to tolerate and maybe even open my heart to the authors’ poignant nostalgia for libmerica. It’s a powerful thing to mark the difference between today’s gruesome nonfan-nonfic—in which the Chosen One aims to delete China while annexing Israel and Greenland—and escape back to the relative paradise known as 2008 to 2016.

Now, to Uncle Joe.Hope Never Dies(Quirk Books), the first of the Shaffer mysteries—Hardy Boys-style with a YA version of the Dashiell Hammett narrative voice, but goofy—was released before Biden had announced his presidential bid; the second,Hope Rides Again,came out not long afterward. Like many an Obaman, Shaffer’s Biden opens the first novel frozen in time, just after the 2016 election, gorging on Ben & Jerry’s. This bothers Jill, Joe’s wife. In both Shaffer novels, Joe and Jill (and Barack and Michelle) are comparable to lovable, forgettable CBS sitcom duos of a decade ago:Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens.The dude is a charming galoot; the wife has his number.

But the real One True Pairing here—let’s not kid ourselves—is gonna involve Barack, whose communiqués Joe initially awaits like a schoolgirl scorned. “After Jill was sound asleep, I scrolled through old text messages Barack and I had exchanged a lifetime ago,” Shaffer writes. “It was an exercise in futility. If I kept picking at the wound, it was never going to heal.”

Biden mirrors the sulky American people. Is Barack Obama ghosting us?

Probably. But inHope Never Dies,he‘s not ghosting Biden, and after Encyclopedia Joe stumbles on the mystery of the murdered Amtrak conductor inHope Never Dies, the Dem Duo reunite to criss-cross Delaware in a farrago that leads them to find the mastermind of the opioid epidemic because why not. (It is not the Sacklers, FYI; fanfic is fic.)

On the cover ofHope Rides Again,the sequel, Obama wears tan as, in an Ethan Hunt moment, he dashingly mounts a rope ladder to a helicopter, giving a hand to trusty Joe. This choice, of course, expresses Shaffer’s fondness for no-drama Obama by reminding us that right-wing pundits had nothing to make hay about in summer 2014 but the president’s beige suit. In this novel, Joeisabout to announce his presidential bid, when Barack loses track of his BlackBerry—warning, the nostalgia goes deep; Obama even smokes again—and the device’s thief has been murdered. Off they go!

Joe encounters thugs, a grenade, near-disaster on an airplane. And he and Barack do, it’s true, end up, “huddled together, arms twisted like a couple of pretzels”—but they’re in a hole the size of a washing machine in the hull of a ship. By the time the police helicopter arrives for them, unfurling its rope ladder, they’ve finished off the bad guys and are ready to fly away, like Obama leaving the White House on January 20, 2017.Sniff.

If this is all high corn, there’s some actual sweetness, too: Shaffer clearly admires and somehow truly gets Joe’s geriatric efforts to be cool and, especially cringily,downwith the 44th president, with fist bumps and (yikes) even pseudo-Ebonics. It’s good someone finds that side of Joe charming.

Reid’sAdventures of Barry & Joe(Dey Street Books), the product of a Kickstarter campaign,is considerably skeevier than the wholesome Shaffer books. To clarify: None of this is slash. That’s a blessing. Shaffer and Reiddo not, I repeat donot, reprise (entirely) the Kirk/Spock erotics from the earliest days of pre-internet fan fiction. In case you somehow dodged the ’70s zines, in which fanfic was first codified, “slash” were the sexy fairy tales, mostly by women, in which the fellowship expressed on the USS Enterprise tilted into loving tendresse and then—sweetly, slowly—into … make-out jams.

Presumably Reid wants a bigger audience for his graphic novel than he’d get with straight slash.Adventuresis ultimately something called “ampersand” fanfic, meaning friendship, not romance, defines the Barry & Joe relationship. (That’s “ship” in fanfic-speak—you D.C. squares got a lot to learn.)

But, unaccountably, Reid still wants to see the former president and VP nekkid, so by panel No. 7 of the chapter called “True Bromance,” they’re drawn in a locker room, preparing to participate in a time-travel experiment by stripping down to their briefs. By No. 9, we’re to full-posterior nudity. Joe, so you know, has the dusty-rose busting-at-the-seams body of geezer strongman Jack LaLanne. Barry, while also shredded, is only somewhat slimmer. Glutes have been diligently attended to by the artists in that section, Joe St. Pierre (of Marvel), Anwar Hananu (Image Comics) and freelance illustrator Dezi Sienty. (The Adventures, which includes a grab bag of stories, aphorisms and short plays alongside the graphic components, is very much a group effort.)

Before Joe and Barack disappear into a time-travel vessel that looks like KitchenAid made it, Biden says, “Barack, I want you to know … I wanna hug even though we’re naked. Is that wrong?” Barry: “Let’s not.” Joe: “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Much of Reid’s scrapbook concerns madcap travel in the “multiverse,” in what could be a tribute to the lateMadmagazine.The taste level isMad,also. In one of Reid’s short stories, Joe returns to the 1970s, looks uncannily hot, and gets a chance to talk to his son, Beau, then 9. More than the nudity, this fictional resurrection of Biden’s son—the real Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015—seems far too intrusive to be even campily enjoyable.

I winced. Until that point, I’d been reading with the simmering notion that liberal democracy, now globally stifled, might come back to life with a new leader in 2020. But Beau Biden will not come back to life. Suddenly the whole project of these wish-fulfillment Obama fantasias seemed like nothing more than fodder for Trump ralliers to, as the T-shirt says, oil their guns with liberal tears. And how in the world could I write about it? One false move—one mentionin fictionthat Obama and Biden (in fiction) are (fictional) witnesses to an (imaginary) gangland shooting (in a work of fiction)—and you might end up quoted with a straight face in some daft anti-Biden propaganda that ricochets all over the internet. While I could suspend solemnity for a few hours, in this current breath-holdingly paranoid climate, there’s not enough oxygen for this much playfulness.

If the Library of Congress shelving system were remade for our time, these fanfic works might be classified as “WAFF,” because they’re meant to generate—you got it—warm and fuzzy feelings. Those are the feelings most Americans still vaguely remember from four years ago. But we’re forgetting. And before we introduce delusions about what might have been, we have an urgent challenge in the present—Trumpism, which can be stopped only with something other than naked cartoons. Thus, the Biden-Obama counterfactuals,especiallybecause they’re meant to be fun, leave me with CAPs—cold and pricklies. Nowthat’s a phrase from the 1970s that should be brought back.

Read More

[therippers]

It was cold, november evening. The sleepy driver tried to remain sane, everyone was asleep, except him. There were a few other men on the bus, sleeping on their seats. No one knew how much their lives would change.

The road seemed dry, after all, it hadn't rained in this city, forgotten by God, for several days. There was frost, but not that much that there was any ice on the street.

So how did it happen that the old-world coach with an experienced driver skidded?Maybe the driver overslept, or worse, he was drunk?

Impossible, the police have rejected all sorts of accusations about him. Maybe he did have a friend there, who helped him? Possibly, nobody ruled it out, but nobody ever checked it.

So how did the bus, skidding, fall on its left side, waking everyone up? He drove a bit, smashing the windows, until the wheels stopped moving lazily.

The driver fell out first, feeling the oncoming defeat jumped out of the seat, leaving the rest behind with little chance of survival.

After a while, you could hear another window breaking, this time the result was intended. Now a short man with honey long hair came out, running out of the bus with panic. Due to the sudden influx of adrenaline, he didn't even feel his broken finger, which is currently unnaturally bent. He looked for his companions, but he couldn't saw anyone. There were screams of other people around him, witnesses who had already called the emergency number, informing about the current tragedy.

Then a tall man came out, one could say terribly tall. His blond hair was in disarray, he was standing in underwear and socks, freezing to the bone. He didn't know what was going on. His appearance of a seeming tough guy, now turned into the view of a clumsy child who is looking for shelter in his mother's embrace. However, she is not around.

Immediately behind him comes equally short, but not as short as the first man. His beautiful brown eyes lost their previous glow, now fear and tears settled in them. His curly hair seemed to be more tangled as far as possible in his case. They were followed by other, battered passengers, but not all of them.

One of them lay under the bus, crushed by its weight.

The men didn't realize this, each of them was already taken by ambulance to the hospital. They didn't know that they were leaving the past behind, welcoming a new, more brutal than they had planned future.

so that's it. i've show u this bc i wanted to see for you, how i'm writing. i'm sorry for bad english or sth, i'm not from uk nor usa, so i was tryin' my best and i hope it's good enough.

[opinionsoninterpretation]

Exhibition Review: ‘It’s Alive’ at the Peabody Essex Museum

“Kirk Hammett, best known as the guitarist of the rock band Metallica, is also an avid collector of classic horror and sci-fi movie posters. This exhibition explores the interplay of creativity, emotion and popular culture through 135 works from 20th-century cinema, including posters by an international array of graphic designers, rare works by unidentified masters as well as related memorabilia such as electric guitars, lobby cards, film props and costumes. Hammett has dedicated the last three decades to creating one of the world’s most important collections and acknowledges his poster collection as a source of inspiration for his own musical creativity.” (From the PEM website.)

When you walk in the door to It’s Alive, an exaggerated squeaking door sound effect plays, inviting you to embrace a subject that might be seen as “too kitschy” for an art museum. 

The introduction label (above) is short, to-the-point, and easily skimmable. My biggest gripe with art museums is that they overload the senses with bright floors, walls, ceilings, and lights. It’s Alive’s use of a dark color scheme and ambient lighting not only set the tone for my experience, it also helped ward off museum fatigue.

There was plenty of space to move -- I never felt cornered or unable to see the art. I neglected to photograph any object labels, unfortunately, but they were brief and interesting.

Several costumes and props were on display. They were placed on raised platforms that suggested flying saucers and were high enough not to be a tripping hazard. The rail around the edge keeps visitors from sitting and children from crawling.

I am always in favor of more seating in museums, but this exhibition had two seating areas, which seemed more than sufficient for the volume of visitors it was getting. (Above is my father, appreciating the last seating area.)

The first seating area was modeled after a 1950′s living room. Clips played on the television, books and magazines were scattered around, and toys lined the cabinets on the walls. (The text on the table playfully reminds visitors not to take toys with them.)

I felt the exhibit did a good job of addressing the “what the heck does Metallica have to do with this” question without making the exhibition feel like it was designed by (or was a shrine to) Kirk Hammett. Screens played interviews where Hammett described the first horror film he saw and how it impacted his musicality. While this was interesting to me as someone who writes dark fiction and is frequently inspired by music (while Hammett writes music inspired by dark fiction and art) and will surely interest Metallica fans, it might be the weak point in the exhibition for some visitors.

The final section of the exhibition included original music by Kirk Hammett, guitarist for Metallica/collector of horror ephemera, as well as a kiosk with a survey. I didn’t take a photo of the survey, but it included basic demographic questions (including “third gender/non binary” and “I prefer to self-describe” as gender options) as well as questions on the visitor’s previous knowledge and the purpose of the visit.

Also visible in the above shot: the designers’ playful attention to detail, seen in the goo that drips from the exit sign.

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

IT'S ALIVE! for Horror Fans in Salem, MA This Fall

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IT'S ALIVE! for Horror Fans in Salem, MA This Fall

Can’t get enough of the weird world of vintage horror? Then Salem, MA is the place to be this fall!  The Witch City is currently home to It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection. The exhibit is showing at the Peabody Essex Museum until November 26th, and it’s a must see for horror fans.

“It’s Alive!” is a showcase of the personal collection of Kirk Hammett, best known as lead guitarist of Metallica. Hammett is a dedicated fan of vintage horror and Sci-Fi memorabilia, and his collection is stunning.

Kirk Hammett at the opening of It’s Alive! at the Peabody Essex Museum

The exhibit revolves primarily around Hammett’s collection of vintage film advertising — from massive three sheet posters, to teaser posters, lobby cards and standees. These larger than life pieces dominated the early film-going experience; gracing theater facades, lobbies, and sidewalks to draw in patrons. But as film advertising changed over time, this art was deemed obsolete and indiscriminately trashed. The pieces on display from the Hammett collection are both gorgeous and tragically rare.

  Visions of Horror’s Past

The iconic staircase scene from Nosferatu (1922) is one of several scenes featured as projections throughout the exhibition

Immediately upon entering It’s Alive!, it’s clear that any horror fan is in for a treat. The lighting is dark and atmospheric, and the famous staircase scene from Nosferatu (1922) is projected eerily on the wall. The exhibit uses projection creatively throughout. A specter of a scene featuring Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (1931) appears later to creepy effect. He approaches you slowly, seemingly through mist, his hypnotic stare getting ever closer before he disappears into darkness.

A UFO beam streaks across the wall above a collection of vintage Sci-Fi posters, and a lightening projection appears on the floor beneath a “Zapatron” prop, a piece of mad scientist equipment created by Kenneth Strickfaden, father of the most iconic mad scientist sets in films. His work can be seen in Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Creepy sound effects and clever displays bring an added layer of fun and discovery for horror fans. But the lifeblood of the It’s Alive! is the posters, works of art that embody the wonderful intersection of Gothic and sci-fi that defined early horror.

  The Art of Terror

Illustrated poster design is a lost art, and It’s Alive! celebrates it in all its weird beauty. The creativity employed by poster artists resulted in designs that can be humorous and campy one moment, haunting and frightening the next.

Poster for Dracula (1931) on display at It’s Alive!

It’s mesmerizing how the same film could be advertised with posters of such diverse styles. One art deco poster for Dracula (1931) has a creepy, voyeuristic vibe, heavy on the sexual undertones of the vampire myth.  A pair of yellow eyes stare from darkness at a beautiful sleeping woman, and the tagline reads “The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!” Other posters for the same film share the tagline, but show the titular vampire and the horror promised more clearly, creating an odd juxtaposition. One even shows Bela Lugosi’s Dracula menacing a frightened sailor aboard a ship — a scene that never appears in the film.

Three sheet poster for Frankenstein (1931) on display at It’s Alive!

Frankenstein (1931) has a similarly diverse array of poster art on display. A gorgeous three sheet poster of the film greets visitors, and it remained a favorite of mine among all the incredible art on display. It shows Boris Karloff’s signature monster looming in the background, over a swooning woman in white. She is draped in a composition clearly inspired by Henry Fuseli’s 1791 painting, The Nightmare.

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (1781)

The connection between the famous painting and Frankenstein  dates all the way back to the original novel by Mary Shelly. Shelly used the painting as inspiration for the scene in which the monster murders Victor Frankenstein’s bride. The unknown poster artist was clearly highlighting this connection, demonstrating the direct connection between the legacy of fine art and the history of horror.

A French poster for the same film looms like a landscape. A funeral procession that takes up only a few minutes of the film forms the centerpiece. Karloff’s monster appears menacingly above the mourners like a vision in the sky. The poster may not reflect a scene in the film itself, but it manages to evoke the themes and mood of it with haunting success.

French poster for Frankenstein (1931) on display at It’s Alive!

It’s Alive! also showcased several teaser posters for Frankenstein. Like the teaser trailers and posters of today, they feature limited text and minimalist imagery. Displayed with the vintage posters we are used to seeing, these minimalist designs were a window into a side of vintage film art I was intrigued to discover!

One of the greatest takeaways from It’s Alive! is that vintage film advertising was a unique art, requiring serious creativity and talent. But during it’s golden age, it wasn’t considered anything worth celebrating or preserving. Sadly, we don’t even know the names of most of the artists who created these incredible pieces! The exhibit does a good job putting this lack into context while highlighting and celebrating the few artists whose identities we do know.

  Horror in the Flesh

Poster art isn’t the only thing on display at It’s Alive! I was particularly elated to see some classic horror props and costumes firsthand. The costume worn by Boris Karloff in The Black Cat (1934) was a highlight. The suit is in incredible condition, and it was fascinating to see something worn by the legendary actor onscreen in one of my favorite horror films.

The suit worn by Boris Karloff in the Black Cat (1934) on display in Salem

More prop highlights included alien costumes from Invaders from Mars (1953),  Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), and Gil-man’s head, worn in Revenge of the Creature (1955)! As a massive fan of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), seeing the Gil-man in the flesh — so to say — was unforgettable! Many of these props bridged a gap between horror and Sci-Fi — two genres that modern audiences find more difficult to reconcile. But It’s Alive! demonstrated how linked these seemingly separate genres have been from the start.

  Monsters and Martians

It’s Alive! is organized in a thematic rather than a strictly chronological order.  Sections highlight gothic inspired films, female driven films, monster movies, trends in poster design, and cold war era Sci-Fi. The layout encourages a better understanding of the emotions and contexts that built the horror genre.

Prop from Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957) on display at the It’s Alive!

The science fiction of the 50’s and 60’s was more often within the realm of horror than it is today. Tales of alien invasions and monstrous threats spoke to the fears of the era. It’s Alive! did a wonderful job presenting the current events that were fueling these fears in an original and fun way.

A recreated 50’s den serves as a setting for an exploration of the Cold War context of mid-century horror . A television plays cold war era news and the coffee table is full of recreated reading materiel on how to prepare for nuclear survival. These reminders of the very real horrors that Atomic Age audiences faced in their daily lives provides essential context for the horror and Sci-Fi films of the era. The exhibit strives to celebrate the historical and social significance of horror; something horror fans have always understood, but are unused to seeing in mainstream arenas.

  For the Love of Horror

The Peabody Essex Museum clearly took great care when collaborating with Kirk Hammett for the exhibit. The curators took the material very seriously, showing a level of respect for horror not always expected from a major museum. As PEM Director Dan L. Monroe and Deputy Director Lynda Roscoe Hardigan explain in the forward to the exhibition’s companion book;

“Rather than delivering traditionally styled exhibitions, we embrace experiences that reframe expectations of what art and other forms of creative expression can be and what can happen in a museum. Let’s face it — have you thought about an art museum as a setting for surprising confrontations with monsters, vampires, and creatures from outer space?”

Horror fans may not expect to see their favorite films celebrated by a major museum, but we certainly know they deserve to be recognized. I can’t help but feel overjoyed to see the Peabody Essex Museum embrace horror with such dedication.

Hammett’s collaboration was visible throughout, not only in his stunning collection, but through several interviews played throughout the exhibit. In these videos, Hammett reflects on his love of horror, his childhood encounters with the genre, and finding a feeling of belonging among the weird world of aliens and monsters.

The passion and respect that Hammett has for horror is apparent in more than just his impressive collection. When he talks about the films he grew up with, he lights up with a unique joy and reverence that horror fans will instantly recognize. The curators at the Peabody Essex Museum took that joy and infused every aspect of It’s Alive! with it. From the presentation, to the pieces themselves, seeing It’s Alive! made me feel like a kid again. If you’re a horror fan and are near Salem this fall, it’s an experience you cannot afford to miss.

 It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sc-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection, runs at the Peabody Essex Museum through November 26th. For more information, visit www.PEM.org.