CROWGRRL’S PERCH 01-02-05

CROWGRRL’S SPOTLIGHT:

* Impaled’s Century Media debut, Death After Life should be a horror movie. The cd tells one gruesome story, all the while protesting the medical community but not without good doses of irony and sarcasm. These guys are a scream! Hailing from Oakland, CA, Impaled is: Sean McGrath on vox and guitar, Andrew LeBarre also on guitar, Ross Sewage on bass and vox, and drummer Raul Varela. The Crowgrrl caught up with one of these deranged masters of mayhem, Ross, on Feb. 19, and it turned out to be a tongue-in-cheek interview dripping with both fun and sarcasm. What horror movie are you going to make from the songs on this album? It would be perfect for one!

It already is a horror movie, is the thing. From beginning to end, it’s a complete story of the horror movie I wish someone would pay me to make. But as it is, it’s much cheaper to make an album.

Not as of yet because it appears that no band will have us. What I’d like to think is that they’re incredibly jealous of our great body of work, but I think it’s just they think we’re dicks. But I’m going to go ahead and say it’s because they’re jealous of our masterpieces that we’ve created that have completely rewritten not just Metal, but music.

Yes, and that’s never been done before. I think we’re the first to think of the concept album, right? I’m pretty sure it’s an original idea to tell a whole story on an album.

This concept album, I’ve had in the works for like 3 years now. I was writing lyrics for it on tour three years ago. It was just a concept, and we didn’t want to give it to our old, crappy label, so we held onto it. Then the music comes, and I place the lyrics where they fit. So, I would say the idea came first, then the music, then the lyrics.

And that’s a boring answer, so let’s just say we rub the guitars on our scrotum until we scream. The egg. The egg came first. I’ve figured it out – it was the egg.

No. I just wrote two songs on this album musically. Sean is really the main impetus. He’s what we’d like to call the heart of Impaled. I would like to call myself the brain, but usually they call me the ass.

Originally, Impaled started out with he and the old guitarist writing together a lot. On the next one, we lost our guitar player, so we all started writing music for it. Sean asked me to take over lyrics because apparently he actually hates speaking. He doesn’t talk. He’s actually learning sign language so he doesn’t have to use his mouth anymore. He’s going to be the signing interpreter. I’m not sure how he’s going to play guitar at the same time. He might be working on doing something with his feet, kind-of like some freak show guy while signing with his hands. I’m not really sure. But it will be really angry signs – really screaming.

Yes, he did do that. Sean hit the president of Century Media in the face. He likes to say that it was an accident, but I think it was because in our contract we’re actually indentured servants. We didn’t read the fine print. So, we had to get all their drinks. If they dropped a napkin, we had to pick it up. I think it might have been a little bit of anger from that.

It’s really our fault. We should have known that we were basically going to have to be their bitches for the next three albums we record with them. But really, they’re great people! Except when they make us bend over so they can kick us in the butt.

We’ve begun work on a video, but as is our way we’re incredibly slow and retarded about it. We start working on it, then we start drinking beers, then it’s all over for the night. But there is going to be a video. We’ve got stuff in the works. I don’t want to talk about it just yet because basically we don’t know what the Hell we’re doing.

It’s going to be for the first song on the record, Mondo Medicale. Then we’re hoping to squeeze out maybe one or two others on our shoestring budget. The other ones will probably be a single camera angle on us just dancing around. That’s all we have the money for.

It’s not a hospital. Sean works for a medical college. He works for the state, he inputs numbers for like premature death rates and garbage like that. Every once in a while, he sneaks into the corpse room and draws on corpses. I don’t know what else he’s done, that’s all he’s told me he’s done. That’s about as close as we get to actually working for the medical community. We had our medical licenses taken away a long time ago. Now, we still have our crazy medical licenses, and you don’t get much work with that.

The typical shirts and patches. I’m trying to figure out how to get belt buckles made. Basically I want people to wear giant uniforms that let people know they’re part of our legions of fans. And by legions I mean like 4. So, if we can get four people to admit that they’re fans of Impaled, we’ll have done our job.

No. We had a street team but they were all like 75-pound 15-year-olds, and they got their butts whooped. It was sad. They got served, ok?! That was our street team and they’re all in body casts right now. We were trying to do a Jets/Sharks thing but the Sharks kicked our butts. They saw us dancing and said, "What a bunch of wusses."

I didn’t organize it, so it will probably work out just fine. We’re bringing our friends Lord Gore and Engorged from Portland, Oregon. Engorged never leaves Portland, but they’re such an excellent band live that we want to get them out. We’re going to collar them and leash them and make them play four shows around the Arizona Metal DevastationFest, so it’s going to be a whole crazy bondage thing. But at least they’ll be playing out, then we’ll release them.

The Arizona Metal DevasationFest should be a lot of fun. There’s a lot of good bands on there. Phobia’s playing. We’ll have a good time in Arizona because all those kids – I don’t know how they do it, but they mosh in that hot weather. God love them for it! I hate it out there. I think it’s a desert, and I can’t understand why anyone would live there. I asked them why they would live there, and they say, "We don’t know. Because we were born here. It sucks." But of course, anger like that makes for good Metal.

We’ve got them out for five days. We would love to just hit the road. We don’t care if we headline or if we go first. We just want to get the free pizza. That’s what it’s about. We want that free pizza at the club because that’s all we eat. At home we eat dirt and straw. That’s all we can afford. It’s not much of a livelihood, I tell ya!

Rocket packs and flying cars. That’s what the future holds. We’re also going to have pills – we’re working on these right now – you take one pill a day and that’s all the meals you need to eat. We’re so busy creating Metal that we don’t have time to eat anymore. I think we’re going to have treadmills that our dogs are going to take us on and we’ll go, "Get us off this crazy thing!" or something wacky like that. That’s the future of Impaled.

What kind of an interview is this?! You want me to come up with my own questions to ask me?! C’mon!

I think actually what I want to talk about is that our album is so good that when people buy it, in addition to that people should send us $10 extra to our personal addresses because really we’ve graced them with our presence and our beautiful music – our caterwauling and our screaming. I think it’s going to end up in the jukebox at every old age rest home in the tri-county area. We’ve got a big 80 years plus fan base. It’s not really well known. We have people at our shows that are breaking their hips moshing. They can only kind-of do the California Death Mosh because they’ve got that arthritis so they can’t really get their arms upright. But at least they’ve got the spirit in their old age.

* The excitement builds for the release of THOR’s upcoming album, Thor Against The World (which will seriously Rock the World!). For a sample, go to www.thorcentral.com and check out the 30 second teaser for the title track.

Hollywod area readers, listen up! There’s going to be a very special event at the Knitting Factory on April 26^th – the movie premiere of Murder at the Presidio starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Priestly, Victoria Pratt, and THOR! And that’s not all – the event is also the cd release party for Thor Against The World (Smog Veil Records) and a screening of the video for the song Glimmer, which is also featured in Murder At The Presidio. And the best part of all about the event? THOR is performing Live (with Sweet Justice)!

Speaking of Murder at the Presidio, be sure to catch it on the USA Network on April 30! Also, watch the Thor website for upcoming info on the new Street Team, Thor’s Warriors!

* Wouldn’t it be awesome to see Thor as part of the line-up for OZZfest 2005 ?! There’s an online survey at the OZZfest site asking who you’d most like to see included in this year’s line up. Go to http://promo.cc.com/ozzfest/survey/thankyou.aspx?cfc=1 and let your voice be heard.

* Hey, Readers, head over to MTV2’s Rock Countdown and vote for My Chemical Romance’s new video, Helena! This powerful video deserves to hit Number One!!! (The Crowgrrl will be logging some votes for it myself!)

The Crowgrrl’s favorite tracks on the album are 1,000 Devils Reign; Night. BeSodom, the delightfully dark Nether Bound, and the catchy Black Angel, White Angel.

* There are some Blazed shows coming up! Dates include:

March 18, 2005 – Patchogue, NY; Billy G’s Pub
March 19, 2005 – Poughkeepsie, NY; The Chance
April 29, 2005 – Amityville, NY; The Village Pub South
April 30, 2005 – Oceanside, NY; The Funky Monkey

Check the Blazed website frequently for the latest news (like live appearances), and to hear MP3’s of the new EP Now The Party Starts (then buy a copy from http://www.skrew.com/cart.php?m=product_list&c=110)!

* This has been a big week for Norma Jean! Their new album, O God, The Aftermath registered 19,195 album sales according to Soundscan , and it hit # 62 on the Billboard Top 200.

"The whole thing just totally blew us away," said drummer Daniel Davison. "Our last record did 2,200 the first week. It’s insane to think we’ve almost sold 20,000 this time around. On top of that, hitting #62 on the Billboard Top 200 was an added bonus. Finishing up this Atreyu tour playing in front of all these new people, and with this upcoming Sounds of the Underground Tour, we couldn’t be any more happy."

Plus, the Norma Jean video for the song Bayonetwork (directed by Chris Sims) made its debut on MTV2’s Headbanger’s Ball on March 12, the episode hosted by Atreyu and the premier of the Atreyu video, The Crimson (directed by Sean Stiegemeier).

* Dark Tranquility are getting ready to tour the U.S. in support of their new Century Media album, Character. Also on the line-up will be Soilwork, Hypocrisy, and Mnemic.

* Darklings in the Washington, DC area, circle the first Friday of every month on your calendar! That’s the monthly ECLIPSE gathering for the best of Darkwave music and Gothic ambiance! It’s being held at the Singapore Bistro at 1134 19th St., NW in DC.

Darklings closer to Baltimore, the Elektroshock party is now Weekly – every Saturday at Grand Central on North Charles Street.

* Animal Planet has a wondrous 90-minute special airing on March 20 – Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. The trailers are absolutely breathtaking – The Crowgrrl can’t wait to see the actual special!

Patrick Stewart narrates this look at these mythical creatures based in both legend and the sound science that would make it believable. These creatures have been reported by every culture on the planet – from Inuit to Aztecs to Europeans to the Orient.

According to the show, the dragons from legend and myth fall into four distinct categories: the Prehistoric Dragon, the Marine Dragon, the Forest Dragon, and the Mountain Dragon. The anatomy of the dragon created in the film was devised by scientific advisor Dr. Peter Hogarth, renown dinosaur artist John Sibbick and the animators from Framestore, and are very realistic because their depiction is based on other elements found in Nature – like the strength of bats’ wings, and mating rituals of eagles. And without giving away too much, the secret to both the dragon’s buoyancy in flight AND the legendary fire-breathing is based in Hydrogen.

Immediately following Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real is another half-hour special, Dragons: The Magic Behind The Scenes – a look at how these mythical creatures were brought to life. Be sure to watch both – and BELIEVE!

* Readers, you’ve GOT to check out The Crow merch currently available at Hottopic.com! The Crow Movie Still Chain Wallet is especially nice. There are also new t-shirt designs, a poster, The Crow Headstone DVD & Necklace Set, a The Crow ball cap, The Crow stickers and postcards. Stock up!

* The last episode in the Star Wars series, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is due to hit theaters on May 19!

* There’s a flick coming straight to video that looks like it may be interesting: Anubis/Ancient Evil 2: Guardian of the Underworld. It’s due to be out in April.

PRINT:

* David "Avocado" Wolfe (author, foremost authority on raw food nutrition, and one of the Alts on the Sci Fi Channel’s Mad Mad House) has a special message to Perch readers. "Are you tired of eating food that’s sprayed with chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, larvacides; genetically modified ingredients, hormonally altered additives, preservatives, red dye #3, yellow dye #4, blue dye #5?"

One of the Cirque du Freak’s performers has a trained spider that Darren makes up his mind he has to have. His friend, Steve, who attends the Cirque with him recognizes the performer, Larten Crepsley, as being a vampire. Steve sneaks back into the decrepid theatre after the show, and wants Crepsley to turn him into a vampire, which Crepsley refuses to do. Darren snuck back inside as well to see what Steve was up to, and decided to use the threat of exposing the vampire as blackmail to steal the spider.

Darren was quite pleased with his new pet, which he kept secret from his family. Every private minute he had, he and Madame Octa (the spider) would perform the same tricks Darren had witnessed at the Cirque. However, when he decided to share this secret with Steve, that’s when his whole world was turned upside down. The poisonous arachnid bites Steve, who ends up in a coma, and the only way he can be saved is if Darren agrees to become the vampire’s assistant in return for the antivenin.

The author brings tons of vivid imagery to the book. The Cirque du Freak series would make a great series of movies!

* Chapter One of my own book, Under Her Black Wings (yes, the title is with Glenn Danzig’s permission - I never would have used that title otherwise) is available to all my readers in the "Print" section of this site.

The chapter list (the actual titles of the chapters may be renamed, but the subject matter’s the same) includes:

All chapters are in progress, and as I research and as people share their stories, they’re included in the appropriate chapter. These should be available soon (to Crowgrrl's Flock Members only) to watch the work in progress.
Sign up here!

* Gothic Beauty Issue #16 IS OUT! Be sure to grab a copy! Ad space is available for future Gothic Beauty issues. For specifics, go to www.gothicbeauty.com/ads and "be sure to mention that Athena sent you."

Gothic Beauty Magazine has revamped its website, and it’s fantastic! Go to www.gothicbeauty.com and check it out. (Be sure to check the message boards there, too!)

* The Crowgrrl’s current reading stack includes:

	Cirque du Freak: Tunnels of Blood" by Darren Shan		"Norwegian In 10 Minutes A Day’, "Norwegian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar" by Louis Janus,
	"Mind of the Raven:Investigations & Adventures With Wolf-Birds" by Bernd Heinrich,		"Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard" by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart,

Two workbooks for helping kids and teens with anger management: How To Take the Grrrrr Out of Anger by Elizabeth Verdick and Marjorie Lisovskis and A Volcano In My Tummy by Eliane Whitehouse and Warwick Pudney, to be added to my son’s curriculum.

I’ve just finished Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant [] by Darren Shan. It is chilling enough to send shivers down the spine even during the hottest of summer days. Review will hopefully be in next week’s Perch. Be sure to check back to find out more!

OTHER NEWS:

* The Crystal Fox has rescheduled author Patricia Telesco’s seminar on Mirror Magick for Saturday, April 9. She’ll also be giving private readings (contact The Crystal Fox at 301-317-1980 to set appointments)

* A fun event’s coming to Maryland on May 14th – ROBOT FESTIVAL 2005 at the Historical Electronics Museum in Linthicum (near BWI Airport). http://robotfest.com/

* Baltimore Ravens’ own Ray Lewis now has his own restaurant in Baltimore: Ray Lewis’ Full Moon Bar-B-Que

* Hey, Readers, you’ve gotta check out a product called Body Balance by Lifeforce. My family takes Body Balance every day! It’s much better than a daily multi-vitamin, that’s for sure! And another "plus", if we feel down or over-tired, a little more Body Balance does the trick to pick us up.

It’s a liquid, ionic, phytonutrient dietary supplement made from whole foods, and it contains a mix of over 120 vitamins, minerals, and phytronutrients that your body needs on a daily basis to keep healthy.

Why am I telling you about this because an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. I felt I had to share this as one thing most of my readers may not know, in July of 2003, The Crowgrrl was diagnosed with breast cancer. This is something I don't want anyone to have to go through what I did. I’ve refused the "conventional" paths of chemo/radiation/surgery, and have taken a holistic naturopathy approach instead (which I’ll go into in more detail in future Perch editions, or readers can e-mail me). I’m supposed to stay on a specific holistic protocol for two years. Withing 14 months the tumor was supposed to shrunk to half of its original size. Much to our surprise as of December, 2003, the lump (tumor) is gone! I’m fine! I firmly believe the Body Balance helped accelerate the healing.

Another Lifeforce International product in the online store, The Crowgrrl and family regularly use is Colloidal Silver. Silver is a natural antibacterial element that can be used both topically and/or internally.

* For those of my readers who experience annoying computer (pc/mac/linux) problems (or those of you techies who are annoyed at friends and relatives expecting you to be their personal tech-support 24/7), go to einnovations.juvio.com for around-the-clock help. I’ve personally done so, and my computer’s working like a dream since getting help from there.

* Anyone who hasn’t already done so, check out the Gallery section here on the Crowgrrl’s site. Prints and some originals are still available. So, buy ‘em already!