THE NOUGHTIES WEREN’T ALL THAT

We’re meant to have these in the next ten years. Hope there’s prototype Spinners in a warehouse somewhere.

I’m guilty of steeping these blog entries in the past – dwelling in the past and failing to look at the current cultural climate. It’s something I’ve pledged to resolve but there’s a reason for that. For all the bluster, mass of available information and glut of social networking resources, the noughties weren’t that good were they? Seeing as I’ve been alcohol-free for the duration, I think I saw them clearly enough for what they were – full of shitty buzzwords (I even used one seventeen words back) and referential nonsense. It was a decade bookended by misinformation, grand-scale terrorist attacks, economic meltdown, flu panics and punctuated by reality shows, a couple of military invasions and with some localised suicide bombs in the middle for extra misery, it hasn’t been what I expected.

I’d anticipated space holidaying, flying family-sized hatchbacks and video phones – actually, we got that one but then realised it was better in theory. I’m grateful for the little box giving me limitless music on the move and high-speed pornography, but is that it?

METAL LOGOS GET MORE & MORE EXTREME

So they’re making a ‘Lords Of Chaos’ movie? Looking at the IMDB feedback, black metal fans are less-than-happy. I don’t blame them. Extreme music fares poorly on celluloid, and with loyalist fans who’ve long been marginalised periodically spotlighted, often “ironically” before being ignored again, they’ve got a right to carry a chip on their black-clad shoulders.

Punk and hardcore have been mistreated – think the ‘Iron Skull’ Cro Mag rebrand in 1988’s ‘The Beat’ or more recently, the flawed ‘What We Do Is Secret’, yet black metal, surrounded by tales of mental church burners seemed to be, bar some sensationalist documentaries, left well alone. Plus, let’s be honest here, Horgh and team Immortal don’t need much assistance in looking pretty silly. Though one documentary appearance worthy of note is, in the otherwise dull ‘Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey’ where a beered up Necrobutcher, bassist for Mayhem, goes off on the critics, and pretty much anyone…