The Formative Years

Helloween

As prepubescent in the late 1980s, there was a German heavy metal band that ruled my world long before I endeavoured to get lost in the world of extreme music.

I must have been nine when I was gifted Helloween’s Walls of Jericho album and it instantaneously blew my mind – the artwork, the tight and intricate musicianship, the theatrical vocals with the unrivalled stability on those insanely high soaring notes, the effortlessness of delivery and the fact that a band like that emerged from Germany. 

I was hooked.

What followed was a massive step up: Helloween’s two epic concept albums centred around fantasy stories, i.e. Keeper of the Seven Keys part 1 and 2. What was initially planned to be a double album but then split in two parts as it was perceived to be too ambitious by the label, became a major success.

With a new vocalist who was by the time of recording merely nine years older than me, the two album do not merely mark a turning point in the band’s history and departure from Helloween’s accomplished speed metal roots, but it deliberately  ventures into melodic territory and is widely heralded as one of the first albums that would define a new genre going by the moniker power metal.

Sound-, lyric, artwork- and music-wise Keeper of the Seven Keys within the context of its time felt like a ground-breaking, new self-contained cosmos that the band confidently sculpted to push the envelope in every direction.

Epic, progressive and mystic in equal measure, the two Keeper of the Seven Keys albums create a unique atmosphere and make them a fun listen to this day due to the heavy riffing, catchy (pre-)choruses, melodic guitars with dominant virtuosic and inspired soli taking up a disproportionate amount of real estate on the masterful recordings, which expertly change atmospheres throughout from reassuring to horrific and everything in between not unlike a well-executed movie with a nuanced storyline.

Looking back, it is not further wondrous that both albums kicked the doors open for Helloween to become a Teutonic success story, which saw them not only tour with Iron Maiden, play Monsters of Rock, tour successfully all over the world and eventual being graced with airplay on MTV’s Headbangers Ball.

Curiously enough, the sentiment of their single I Want Out not only reflected my outlook on the world at that time, but catapulted me into the exploration of heavier and more extreme music.

Pomade and Underground Culture throughout the Ages

Ever since the inception of rock’n roll music, extravagant hairdos have been  inextricably linked to underground music cultures. However, some of them also have their trademark go-to products to refine them. I am not necessarily referring to punks using glue and anything sticky to ensure that their mohawk is at a ninety degree angle but rockabillies and greasers, whose nomenclature already suggests the products they prefer, i.e. tubes of grease or pomade.

Derived from French “pomade”, in its original form it was made from the curious melange of mashed apples, animal fats and herbs and was thus used as an ointment, long before being employed as a hair product heavier and being lauded for doing a better job than traditional waxes or creams.

Ever since the 1950ies and I vividly remember both my grandfathers using it extensively leaving their respective bathrooms with the resulting hovering wafts of the product’s aromas, pomades have been used to not only keep one’s quiff in shape but imbue the pompadour with a luscious, stylishly shiny and waxy look, so it should not be further wondrous that it has become synonymous with rockabilly culture.

Eventually pomade has evolved to become a more refined product than to serve the purpose of greasing back young Elvis’ hair, with a modern twist giving birth to a range of different variants giving a softer, slightly texturized or matte finish, which was just around the time when it made a comeback into underground culture and hardcore. 

However, despite having evolved from a product that leaves residue everywhere to one with ingredients that make it feel like set jelly with a bit of bounce to it, pomade has still retained a defined purpose and distinct vibe, which seems essentially geared towards a certain hair type, i.e. at least medium length top and side, short in the back.

I usually start with a coin sized bit of pomade applied to slightly damp, towel-dried hair starting with the sides to then move to the back and finally pull my fingers through the top, to then add more if needed. Apply it vice versa and you are going to end up with a front-heavy piece. 

While I usually wear my hair fairly short, I have witnessed unapologetic perfectionist psychobilly friends finetune their more exaggerated distinction between the top, back and sides, creating sculpted, upwards pointing shiny, hairy waves that would make the Fonz jealous, or alternatively the Mike Ness’ of this world, rough and ready, pulled back with a comb and a generous serving of pomade to give it a glossy finish and ample opportunity to reshape throughout the day.

Intrigued by its stylish presentation and the overall brand concept within the confines of a barbershop, I was introduced to King Brown Pomade and its product range. Luckily, their tobacco and vanilla scented core product lived up to what the designs on the tins promised in terms of hold and sheen. 

Eventually I moved to King Brown’s cologne scented water soluble based formula along with the lemon myrtle and sandalwood fragrance carrying, natural look enhancing Cream pomade variant, as both dry firm yet can be restyled without the need of a water source, complemented  by the sheen-less volume enhancing  Kingbrown grooming spray geared at taming longer hair.

All of the aforementioned enriched my grooming routine immensely and looking a bit deeper into how King Brown came about, the love, care and research that went into refining individual products along with the schmick designs that adorn its products and make it look classy instead of merely novelty products that try to fit into an overcrowded niche.

The Formative Years

Beastie Boys

My first exposure to Beastie Boys was via a birthday present I received as a prepubescent in form of the Licensed to Ill vinyl album, which constituted first hip-hop vinyl album I owned. 

It was not long after that I discovered what I thought was a hardcore punk band with the same name via a copy of the New York Trash compilation. I shared my curious discovery with an elder scenester only to be corrected that it was indeed the same band – a fact that blew my mind. 

Listening to their Polly Wog Stew 7” started a lifelong interest in Beastie Boy’s creative cosmos and I explored their evolution from their early rudimentary punk days to the incorporation of rap into their sets, their Def Jam Rick Rubin years in the mid-'80s, the move to Capitol Records and the recording of their fantastic Paul’s Boutique album. Just when I thought I had them figured out, they released an album that again upped the ante in terms of existing almost exclusively of eclectic samples.

Next up was Check Your Head, which took an interesting deliberate detour into territory where the band started playing instruments, incorporate jazz and funk elements along with a tribute to their early hardcore punk roots, and saw them found their own label Grand Royal Records.

Ill Communication followed in 1994 and while being another great album, it was around the time that I lost interest due to them getting extensive air play on MTV as in the year that punk broke, jocks got into alternative music via the mainstream success of bands like Nirvana, which was something my teenage rebellion could not tolerate.

I only recently dedicated time visiting their output from 1996 onwards and was richly rewarded:

Hello Nasty added another string to their bow with bombastic beats and more experimental sounds; To the 5 Boroughs saw them taking the helm as producers, followed by the instrumental album The Mix-Up. 

“Hot Sauce Committee” became an instant favourite with the melange of playing and sampling obscure records as they were playing.

2018 saw the release of the memoir, i.e. Beastie Boys Book, which is a gem and highly recommended as it documents their journey from starting as a hardcore punk band that started to infiltrate mainstream culture via hip hop and rap rock, to then subversively mix elements of funk, electro and jazz to trailblaze create their very own lane and thereby created the foundation for alternative hip hop and alternative rock in equal measure.

Wonderdome

Entertainment Quarter 

Sydney, Australia 

Until 30 January 2022

The last couple of years have seen the incarnation of quite a few visually immersive experiences on terra australis. 

Most of them were interesting, however, not each one managed to actually come close to accomplish the dissolving the boundaries between the third dimension and digital realities in a bid to let the audience experience an entirely new one.

Housed in a pop up 360 dome, the aptly titled Wonderdome employs cutting edge technology to transform what is thought possible within the confines of cinematic entertainment: 

Merging elements from movies, music and underlying artistic concepts, Wonderdome creates with projections emanating from twelve individual sources and the employment of a blur edge blending technique an idiosyncratic virtual reality where one feels like being an active part of the experience. The fact that Wonderdome creates a seamless experience on an overarching screen instead of complementary individual ones only adds to the cohesive appeal.

Diverse in nature as far as the themes of the immersive worlds are concerned, ranging from exclusive Australian productions centred around the celebration of indigenous dance and song via David Attenborough narrated National Geographic and playful children friendly films to vibrant space odysseys and more abstract, aesthetically challenging artistic concepts, the common denominator is that Wonderdome presents a new way of not only watching but literally experience films.

Once seated in bean bags with supporting neck rests, one is in the perfect position to get lost in world of stimulating, superb imagery, which results more often than not in emotionally heightened reactions. I cannot wait for technology to advance for regular feature films to be experienced in the Wonderdome manner.

The Formative Years

Septic Death

I vividly remember the first I was exposed to Septic Death. 

It was unlike any other hardcore punk, thrash or crust punk I had heard before. 

Not only were the songs thematically centred around themes like fear, paranoia, terror, mental illness and political issues of 1980s cold war era, but sonically I was blown away by how effortlessly and technically concise Septic Death conveyed the horror of the songs’ lyrical content. 

Singer Brian Schroeder’s, i.e. Pushead, detailed second-to-none idiosyncratic artworks added another intense mind-altering dimension to make the package complete and sealed the deal with the way he created gripping and immensely recognizable visual equivalents to the music and made Septic Death instantenously one of my all-time favourite bands.

Septic Death was and to this day remains a unique band in that it not only created its own unrivalled haunting niche sound, which was lightning fast, extremely erratic and noisy, but a whole world on itself.

I loved the fact that Septic Death did not really rely any metal tinges to add a punch to their emission, but was in league with bands like Deep Wound, Siege, the fervour of furious Italian hardcore punk like Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers and Raw Power, trailblazing rudimentary European outfits like Pandemonium and Laerm as well as Japanese hardcore thrashers like S.O.B.: Septic Death’s guitar parts sound at times like condensed white noise, drums are reminiscent of a madman running amok with a pair of metal sticks in an abandoned industrial site and stating that Pushead’s varied, well thought through and at times deliberately obnoxious vocal delivery was unorthodox would be an understatement par excellence.

Needless to say, Septic Death’s legacy influenced how punk music evolved from the likes of Discharge and Black Flag to what became widely known as powerviolence, trashcore and other blast-beat dominated extreme music.

One of the most imaginative, pioneering, seminal hardcore punk bands that occupies a special place in my heart.