For my
second foray into the music that has impacted me, will be a group that I
frequently mention on Facebook. Like…at
least once a week or so. They are vulgar. They are irreverent. They are Gwar.
I first
got into Gwar in 1993. I was stationed in Virginia Beach at the time, not that
far from where they are from, Richmond Virginia. I forget how I heard about
them, but remember that they put on some brutal live shows, and people
constantly got hurt (more on that later).
I went to the mall located near the Oceana Naval Air Station one time,
and was looking for something new to buy.
I came across their only EP released the previous year, The Road Behind. I liked it.
Then, I got the full length album where the song The Road Behind was
from, America Must be Destroyed.
Just….wow.
First
off, everything that Gwar says? Yeah, take it with a MASSIVE grain of salt.
Here’s
their “mythos”:
GWAR's
story begins at the beginning of time when the Master, a giant planet sized
mass of flesh, shat out the entire universe. After viewing his creation, he
decided it needed wiping. Thus, the Master created the Scumdogs of the
Universe, an army of intergalactic pirates, warriors, and psychopaths who
pledged allegiance to him, GWAR amongst them. Along with the Master's most
loyal servant, Techno Destructo, GWAR and the Scumdogs of the Universe waged
chaos across the universe, but GWAR invoked the Master's ire by blowing up the
wrong planet (Flarv Quarv 7, rather than Flarv Quarv 6 as they were instructed).
GWAR was immediately defeated by the Master in combat and
exiled to the backwards mud-ball planet Earth for eternity. But even in exile,
the members of GWAR still managed to enjoy themselves- they invented rock music
by stretching dinosaur guts across the grand canyon, killed the dinosaurs, and
accidentally created humanity after raping a bunch of gorillas. From there,
they would go about wrecking human civilizations until the Master found out
about their activities on Earth, and so, he froze them in ice and locked them
away in a temple in Antarctica.
Thousands of years later in 1984, music mogul Sleazy
P. Martini stumbled upon their hidden temple after fleeing from the U.S. for
drug trafficking and crashing his helicoptor in the Antarctic. A combination of
global warming and sunlight reflecting off his gold chains melted GWAR's icy
prison. They attempt to kill Sleazy, but he quickly wins their favor by hooking
them on crack and convincing them to let him be their new band manager. Shortly
after this, they discovered the band Death Piggy and convinced the band members
to join them as their personal slaves and/or butt-boys, and decided to continue
this tradition, while at the same time kidnapping and mutating other humans to
become their slaves and minions.
They would then go on to become one of the most
renowned rock bands ever, and would attempt to either escape, conquer, or
destroy the earth multiple times, facing deadly enemies such as Techno
Destructo, the Devil, Dr. Skulhedface, Cardinal Syn, and many others.
Ok,
back to America Must be Destroyed. There
is so much suggestive, and…to be honest…flagrant…topics of sex, sex organs, and
violence in that album, it’s not funny.
Well…ok, the way they present it is.
If you have a dark sense of humor.
I must admit that I was a little put off by some of the subject matter
at first. But then I started really looking at the lyrics and realized…yeah,
this is totally fake and over the top.
I think
I have two favorite songs on this album, although they are ALL good. First is The Morality Squad. This song takes an over-the-top look at
certain groups like PMRC (Parent’s Music Resource Center) that want to put
limits on artistic expression on music groups like Gwar, 2 Live Crew, Judas
Priest, etc. With lyrics like “Freedom for all the people, brave, true and
strong. Freedom for all the people,
unless I think you’re wrong”, and “Gwar, you’re the worst, I’ll put an end to
you. You’re even grosser than 2 Live
Crew”, it’s kind of obvious. There’s
even a “commercial” for a fight-to-the-death match between Granbo (the leader)
and her Morality Squad vs Gwar, and it sounds like one of those radio
commercials that you’d hear on the radio for a Monster Truck event.
My
second favorite song is the title track, “America Must be Destroyed”. This song actually has no lyrics, but vocal
samples from different movies and musicians, and included something from the
Challenger disaster. I know of the
Challenger sample taken from NASA footage, Dr. Strangelove, and stuff from The
Last Poets “White Man’s Got a God Complex”.
There are others, but I couldn’t find out what they are. The song starts out with a syncopated rhythm
then fades into a driving, yet simple, rhythm that almost immediately gets my
head bobbing.
Fast
forward more than a decade, and Gwar releases Beyond Hell. To be honest, I hadn’t followed Gwar at all
after America. It was basically an
accident that I re-discovered them. I
was thumbing through a free weekly newspaper (mostly ads, a horoscope, some
local things like art galleries, and…concerts) in Columbus, Ohio (my home since
2000). I saw an ad that Gwar was coming
with Cradle of Filth (!!!!) (they get their own post later), both had released
new albums, come see them, yada yada. I
thought to myself: ”You know….tickets are only $20. It’s not a work night. When
will I have a chance to see them again? And two bands.” So, I convinced…er…begged…my wife to let me
go. I got the newest album, Beyond Hell,
and listened to it so I wouldn’t be too lost.
Basically,
Beyond Hell is a concept album where the entire thing is a story, and each song
is a piece of that story. The military
decides to attack the Gwar fortress in Antarctica. Gwar fights back, the fortress was destroyed,
and Gwar flees into the UnderEarth below the fortress. They go down so far that they emerge in Hell,
fight all the big-wigs including Satan himself.
They defeat Him (well, duh), and find their way back up to their
fortress, only to find that almost no time had passed. Their manager sent over a nine-ton crack
boulder, they smoke it, and things are fine once more (see mythos above for
crack issue).
I was only familiar with a few of Gwar’s songs…
and most of the ones played at the concert…yeah. I didn’t know. But it was a GREAT show. No, I didn’t get in the mosh pit that time.
Since then, I’ve seen them three other times, and have been in the mosh pit for
all of those. Gwar has the roughest,
rowdiest mosh pit I’ve been in. If you lose your mind and decide to go see
them, definitely stretch first. I didn’t one time, and my knees were so sore
the next day. Be warned, however. They “kill”
people on stage. Politicians. Musicians.
Celebrities. And in really graphic, yet
hysterical ways. Don’t worry, it’s all
foam rubber, latex, and a water-based fake blood. That blood…they shoot out into the crowd
during some songs via various ways: “decapitation”, dismemberment, etc. Gwar
fans that have been to several shows wear white t-shirts to see how “bloody”
they can get themselves. Unfortunately, even after baking in the dryer to set
the colors in, they still came clean in the wash. Dangit.
The
songs on Beyond Hell are great. I don’t
think there’s a single one that I don’t enjoy.
The story itself is intriguing, the lyrics are properly descriptive, and
the story comes to a predictable yet satisfying close.
I think
my favorite song on this album is “War Is All We Know”. It has a fast driving tempo, and lyrics that
describe a Gwar battle rather well, including some well written
descriptives. This song is the beginning
of the Beyond Hell story, where armies are attacking the Gwar fortress in
Antarctica, and Gwar is getting their butts handed to them. There are some intriguing tempo changes both
at the begging and later towards the end of the song. I can only describe it as
kind of like a machine slowly starting then getting up to speed. Bum….bum….bum bum bum bumbumbum. The song slows down for a bit in the middle,
but it really fits.
Gwar
also did a cover of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” on this album. To be honest, I’m not sure which version is
better. Cooper’s original version is
just fantastic, and I can’t think of anyone doing it justice. However, the spin that Gwar put on it really
makes it their own. You can find the
video of that song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PexuypIX8uU
After
Beyond Hell, I dusted off the one other album of theirs I had, and started
collecting them again. Some of their
stuff between America and Beyond Hell wasn’t that great. They were
experimenting with their sound. They
finally got back to a pure metal sound with “Violence Has Arrived” in 2001.
Gwar’s
music is loud, violent, and sometimes disturbing, yet darkly humorous. There is some real musical talent in the song
writing, though. A warped sense of humor
helps.