Halcyon Magazine

So the title of this you tube video is “Video about pathetic metal dudes who make cardboard guitars,” or so the dude at Metal Inquisition tagged it on youtube. Right on dude! That shits funny! Anyways, Colin showed it to me at work a long time ago and I just remembered it for some reason. This self-loathing Ben and Jerry’s eating sweatpant wearing tagline ALONE really should be enough to make you want to watch it.

If that’s not enough, do let me explain. Its an excerpt from Janet Street Porter ’s 20th Century Box program,  a documentary on the then burdgeoning NWOBHM scene which included an early TV appearance of Iron Maiden performing at The Marquee Club, and ironically hilarious interviews with “air guitarists” narrated by Danny Baker.

Anyways, apparently the dude in this video has made close to half a dozen cardboard guitars (including one “inventerted flying V that was…. a total flop”) for his headbanging performances. Apparently in the underground British metal scene, kids make fake ones to play along with their riffing heroes. Call it what you will, but performer/audience communication and art imitating life imitating metal, to me, is a complex investigation into the nature of artifice and facade. 
Or whatever.

Nu är det Jul igen och nu är det Jul igen och Julen varar än till Påska! För det va inte sant, för det va inte sant, för där emellan kommer…. Halcyon wishes you all a Good Yule and a Happy New Year. To enhance your festive spirits, we have selected three cool/comical/completely crazy (K)ristmaz kraut videos. Enjoy.

Amon Düül II - Soap Shop Rock

What was the theme about? Black Panther Party all the brothers and sisters burning down and the churches escaping? What a brilliant stage setup. The singer crowds together with the other dudes between a wall of Orange amps and two drummers.

Guru Guru – Der LSD March

Every cell owns a code! Set it free, LSD! Guru Guru were some über crusty hippies. Long live the Germans and their musical self-indulgence.

Can – Paperhouse

These guys mastered the extended jam. Relentlessly banging and mangling their way through the song, Can doesn’t leave you with a moment to catch your breath. When two fifths of the band are shirtless, it leaves an odd impression. Was this a case of animosity between a bass-player and a singer,  as in “why should only the singer be allowed to show some skin”?

Erik and Pelle Gustafsson might be living in danger.

BY DANIEL HARJU

Since the beginning of time, metal heads and other “heads” have been shaking their brains like yolks in raw eggs. Now, two Australian researchers warn in a recent article published in the British Medical Journal that this wholesome tradition can also lead to severe brain damages. Sorry bros… You thought your were safe now that you grew up and stopped jumping around in mosh pits, stopped diving of stages and stopped sniffing glue. Consider this and think again before it’s too late.

In addition to damaged hearing, headbanging to tempos over 146 BPM (beats per minute) in neck movements greater than 75 degrees can also lead to mild head injuries. In this tempo, which the study concluded was the average tempo of a headbanging song, bobbing one’s head in movements greater than 105 degrees can give you, the dummkopf, mild brain damages. Laws of gravity (and stupidity) dictate that if you swing your head back-and-forth to tempos over 180 BPM with neck movements of over 120 degrees, you can acquire long term brain damages.

Ouch and Snap! Go easy there Mr. Newsted.

As examples of high-profile victims of headbanging the researchers point to Metallica’s bass-guitarist Jason Newsted, whose intense circular headbanging might have caused him enough pain to quit the behemoth band in 2001. The article points out that Newsted cited “physical health problems” as reasons for his departure.  

Another bad case of headbanging mentioned in the article was Evanescence’s guitarist Terry Balsamo, who had a stroke in 2005 after many years of intensive headbanging. Mr Balsamo is now back in that god-forsaken band after his doctor concluded it was indeed headbanging that popped a vein in his head. I’m not so sure. Who wouldn’t suffer brain damages if they had to play guitar in Evanescence?