I don’t know if we ever had something like this on here before, but I felt like cooking up a companion thread to the “what are you listening to” thread, inspired of course by everyone’s favorite pejorative term for ex-Ministry members.
So: what are you reading right now?
Mind you, this can be any type of publicly accessible written material at all. If you know of an interesting and informative website full-of mind-melting information, or have stumbled upon some little-known underground comix, or even found a great cookbook or whatever…use this thread to justify its existence.
If you know of anything enlightening, bone-chilling, side-splitting, etc., “please share with the rest of the class”
The True Adventures of the World’s Greatest Stuntman, by Vic Armstrong. He talks about doing the Bond films, Indiana Jones and lots of other stuff. He’s an arrogant fucker, but i have laughed out loud at quite a few of his anecdotes to far.
Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult by Dayal Patterson. As someone who knew very little about the genre beforehand, this is very helpful in suggesting bands to check out.
Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult by Dayal Patterson. As someone who knew very little about the genre beforehand, this is very helpful in suggesting bands to check out.
How does that stack up against “Lords of Chaos,” I wonder? That is maybe one of my all-time favorite books of music journalism.
There’s been a glut of very stupid academic books or journal articles about BM in recent years; there are also some organizations that host “black metal symposia” which I would probably rather cover myself in fire ants than have to sit through. I think it may be replacing “noise” as the counter-culture phenomenon of choice for incomprehensible humanities / cultural studies professors to latch onto, to prove they still have their finger on the pulse of extreme culture.
So, nonetheless, good to see there’s still some material on the subject that isn’t coming either from the ivory tower or from the sensationalist schlock camp.
I read a couple books a week but recently finished “The Book of Joe” by Jonathan Tropper, it took me a couple minutes to finish the first page and a half - tough to read while laughing hysterically with tears in your eyes. Amazon.ca lets you read the first couple pages - you know you want to.
(Iknow, I know I could provide a link but don’t know how and can’t be arsed to find out).
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon:Laurel Canyon,Covert Op’s and the Dark Side of the Hippie Dream by Dave McGown
Looks good also. Probably one of my favorites in that genre would be the “Love, Sex, Fear, Death” expose of the Process Church of the Final Judgment (and I now realize I just plugged TWO Feral House books in this single thread, but I swear by Odin’s beard that I’m not on their payroll.)
I’d recommend that with the caveat that the Processeans were far from being ‘hippies,’ to the point of even abstaining from alcohol and other recreational drugs. Still that book’s a classic of 1960s utopian / apocalyptic culture studies.
It is addictive. I only regret that I showed up here too late to really experience the board celebrities like “NashTheSlash” and “Gerda” in all their glory.
Just finished “Chain Saw Confidential” by Gunnar Hansen. Great book about the making of Texas Chain Saw Massacre written by the original Leatherface.
This, too, looks like a good Book Club read.
A fella by the name of Stefan Jaworzyn - ex- of Whitehouse live and Skullflower, also editor of ‘Shock Xpress’ fanzine and similarly named record label - put out a book some years ago titled the “Texas Chainsaw Companion,” but I never got around to reading it on account of lukewarm reviews.
Quite a few of the guys who were actually a part of the scene have said that that book is a load of bullshit.
The loudest and most consistent criticism I’ve heard has come from Varg Vikernes, amusing since his own critics seem to think he’s portrayed too ‘favorably’ in the book, or just that his views get too much ‘oxygen of publicity’ or whatever.
I can understand Vikernes’ protest that Michael Moynihan was attempting to forge some non-existent link between Norse paganism and LaVeyan Satanism in the BM scene, but I think his paranoid tendency to ‘look for a Jew under every bed’ (in this case, Anton LaVey and Adam Parfrey) damages the credibility that he might otherwise have.
Anyway, I’m curious to know what other inaccuracies have been pointed out by other people portrayed in the book.