A Penchant For Something Different: Weird Music

Welcome to today's lesson of rock and roll! Many of my friends know that I have a weird taste in music. Even I have to admit is pretty weird and reflects my taste for movies (I can talk about ridiculous Grindhouse/exploitation flicks but that's a different story) . My taste of music basically took me to all sorts of places, from Post-Punk to Italy's Spaghetti Westerns, from the deep south's Rockabilly to Florida's Death Metal scene. However, those are solid genres. Genres of music that has their own scene. Now in this blogpost, I'm going to show you some of the weirdest of the weirdest I found all over the net. Crossing from the genre hoping to the absurd. Here's some I've discovered on my musical journey and I hope more people would actually enjoy this weird sense of music.

Now let's start off with:

Gloominous Doom - Portal Pottty

Music: Now, this from the surface may look as if it's just some death metal band but it's not just it. It's in no way some stupid deathcore band that tries to jumble up 1000 genres into their music. While the band plays real death metal and touch of grindcore, this band blends in all sorts of mixes from ska, to reggae and southern rock-esque guitar touch. The music makes you feel in the Caribbean swimming and moshing in the middle of DC at the same time. It is one part bong themed music and one part headbanging death metal tune and plus, they're singing about teleporting potties.

Bonus Points: The freaking video is totally insane and full of pop culture reference, delivered in a tongue in cheek fashion, all in a neck breaking death metal crisp. Below are just some of the weird fucked up moments in the video clip:

1) A toilet version of Doctor Who's Tardis
2) A pretty hot Marilyn Monroe that enter's this Death Metal Dr Who's Tardis.
3) A reggae guitarist smoking a pipe and wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt
4) The Dude from The Coen Brother's "The Big Lebowski", joining Dr. Who for the ride while drinking his milk (Let's hope it's White Russian like in the movie)

Now I did not get all the pop culture references here but I know somebody who knows deeper about pop culture might spot the plethora of references in this video clip.

Le Scrawl "White Russian"

Music: I love jazz, I really do but what happens when that jazz is mixed up with a punk ish attitude, a warm funky feeling and to top it off, they got a grindcore vocalist to smash it into your face. This is the kind of music I would listen and stare at wall and hallucinate without the use of LSD. The music is so trippy and yet you want it to go on but it stops abruptly!

Bonus Points: THE WHOLE VIDEO CLIP IS LIKE A HALLUCINATION!





Music: Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong gets a death metal make over and still gets to keep their trumpets.

Bonus Points: When was the last time you saw someone as cool as this, "singing" death metal. It's like a noir movie with a metal soundtrack.

Reverend Horton Heat - Baddest of the Bad

Music: When you think of country or even rockabilly, you would think about some country hicks squaredancing. Now here's a country/rockabilly that you can mosh and headbang too. On the surface, it's rockabilly tune but underneath, it's layered with the fastest grindcore drumming and almost black metal esque tremolo picking, all done without a super thick distortion (You know, the ones those black metal guys use to do.) Now who says Country/Rockabilly can't be badass?

Bonus Points: If there's someone with the balls out there, somebody could actually combine this with metal and make something unique out of it. It would be some fucked up piece of metal.



Music: The reverend gets into the list twice! What starts off with a country tune that you can square dance to like in those country songs but when it reaches the chorus, death metal drums kick in and a light weight distortion playing a psudeo death metal riff smashes you. However, it is all done while making fun of death metal! Haha.

Bonus Points: The irony about this music is that the band's making fun of death metal but it sounds like they're making fun of Black Metal cause the lyrics are about the band Mayhem, how they add the vocalist's brain. (Yes they did, go google it.) To add up the irony, the genre/style they're playing is basically a country version of death metal.



Music: Remember when I said I wished there was a band that combined metal and country? Well, these guys did it, with harsh vocals. I say welcome to Desperadoz. These Germans thinks they're from Texas (they even have songs where they sing with a Southern accent) and decide to cover this classic cowboy theme song which Clint Eastwood popularized. Double bass drumming, country guitars with metal riffs, all with over the top throat vocals. One part Tarantino soundtrack potential, one part Wacken Open Air potential.

Bonus Points: The band is from Germany and this completes the Spaghetti Western circle. The Americans like John Ford make westerns, Akira Kurosawa then mimics their filming, then Sergio Leonne from Italy sets the whole Spaghetti Western genre in Italy and these German boys took the aesthetic and put it into music instead of movies. The bad also has Spaghetti Western like tracks that has the "Morricone Guitar Riff."


So now, kick back and take a twist in your music tastes. I will introduce weirder ones in the future and just get prepared as this is just level one of my weird taste in music.