We all know that there are plenty of things better than Star Wars and Illcon has made this public knowledge before. I mean, George Lucas has been shitting on his fans for quite some time now, what do you owe him? Nothing. Today's record is something that is also better than Star Wars.
The little dude above is a fella called Meco, Domenico Monardo to be exact. He was a pretty big name during the 1970's as a respected producer and trombonist. Playing on and producing records for Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Gloria Gaynor and plenty of others. Things changed however, when in 1977 George Lucas released his cash vulture, Star Wars. Meco got pretty excited by this film. Even more excited by the stirring score courtesy of the always awesome John Williams. Meco hatched on the idea of creating a disco version. Of course, it was laughed at and not taken seriously. Who would believe that could work!
Meco believed and wouldn't let up. Luckily the score became a huge hit and the top brass relented, allowing him to see his idea through. Of course he would need a pretty sweet band to achieve this feat. The Sci-Fi Disco Band Meco was born.
Seriously
Despite looking like the outcome of letting Ming The Merciless assemble the Village People, the band managed to survive on the mean streets of New York for about 4 months performing live and providing a much needed visual element to this epic onslaught of disco. And it is an onslaught. The album contains the full 15 minute Star Wars suite encompassing the opening them, Imperial March, the cool flying music bits, all those schmaltzy parts and that stupid band in the bar. It also has robots dancing on the cover.
Back for more. Part 1 ( I'm not going to link it as you would miss the sweet Herpes post below ) whet your appetite about some classic arcade gaming. Well I have carried on my trawl through the arcade classics I remember and picked out more of my favourites that are worthy of a go still to this day. Lets get down to it.
Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja (1988)
One of those games that every arcade had, also one of those games that everyone had at home as it was ported to nearly every home computer going. Despite being easier on the home versions it still gave you a little more edge over the competition when it came down to playing it in public. The game had you attempting to rescue President Ronny ( Reagan ) from the DragonNinja. You constantly get asked if your a bad enough dude to take on the job despite your character proclaiming he's "bad" after every stage. They ain't even satisfied when you beat the shit out of waves and waves of enemy ninjas, dogs, ladies in bondage gear and various boss characters.
Once you manage to defeat the the evil DragonNinja, you get this pretty sweet ending......
Lucky & Wild (1992)
This was the coolest game when I was a kid. For those of us that grew up watching Lethal Weapon, Starsky & Hutch and Tango & Cash, this was the only way to live out those fantasies. It wasn't a very popular machine due to the size it required, but you had hit gold if any amusement had it. First off, check the machine......
That's right! Driving as well as shooting! With two guns! It might be a common thing these days but back in the late 80's/early 90's, only Chase HQ had the police chase, shooting and driving angle really nailed. Lucky & Wild allowed you and a buddy to be cops chasing down and shooting the shit out of everything on screen. Check the video.............
Mute the sound as its pretty annoying listening to some bozo talking through it.
Pretty sweet looking eh? The attraction of it was the absolute chaos it seemed to involve. You drove through malls and restaurants while blasting bad guys apart! At its heart it was a standard rail shooter, to my young mind it was the nearest I would ever get to being involved in high speed shoot-outs.
Hot bitches
Plus sweet chase music
I am pretty sure this is the king of my mispent, childhood, arcade loitering.
Vendetta (1991)
At one point in time, any urban set, revenge themed beat em up wouldn't have been taken seriously if it didn't have the title screen set on a graffiti strewn brick wall. That was a cast iron certificate that you would see fist/face interface action. Vendetta was a sort of sequel to the Double Dragon rip off Crime Fighters, it was a pretty standard rescue-your-girl-from-nasty-dudes. Now, lots of games dealt with this theme, Vendetta changed it up with the chance to have 3 of your friends back you up. Allowing you to throw each other into enemies and such.
Vendetta added a ton more violence than Final Fight or Double Dragon had, this was what had me coming back. You could hold enemies down and wail on their torso, smash barrels over heads, kick down scaffolding, smash sacks of cement around their faces, tons of pretty rough stuff. Get your hands on a baseball bat with nails or a chain and you could carve your way through the enemies.
Hot bitches and fire.
Your gang is called Cobras.
Rogues gallery.
Did I also mention the pretty bitchin' soundtrack courtesy of Castlevania composer Michiru Yamane? You bet I did.
Personally, these where my favourites. I always had a few more that I played pretty regular like Captain Commando, Knights of The Round, Narc, Vigilante and some others. Anyone want to throw their own favourites in?
If my parents had a list of things I shouldn't have spent my hard earned paper round money on then arcade games where public enemy number one when I was a child. Even more so than comics and records! I could happily piss away a whole weeks wage ( back then, that was a lot) inside of an hour at any number of amusement arcades dotted around my home town. I have always believed the appeal was the fact that you believed you would never see these games on your home computer, couple that with the amount of violence and the prison-art-therapy artwork adorning most of the machines casings and you had a sure thing when it came to relieving young people of money. I recently spent a bit of time messing around with a MAME emulator and revisiting some of these games. Suffice to say, it becomes obvious you were not designed to complete most on a single credit. A few have held up pretty well while others still hold a small corner of my memory hostage. Following my research, these are my sure fire, revisit, classic arcade cash devourers.
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (1992)
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs not only combined all manner of awesome things ( dinosaurs, cool cars, guns, post-apocalyptic story and girls) to appeal to a young man, but it also managed to keep me going back time after time. Despite being Mark Schultz'sXenozoic Tales bolted to the Final Fight game system, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs held my attention for years. You had guns! Final Fight didn't have those. You could kick the shit out of dinosaurs! Final Fight couldn't do that.
That's what you think dick neck.
The story had you fighting off poachers, mutants, bikers and various nasty types from messing with the balance of nature. That didn't really matter to me. The clincher was halfway through the first stage, being able to blast someone out of a window with a shotgun before punching a Rock Hopper (Raptor. None of the dinosaurs go by their real names) in the face outside in an alley! Throw in being able to smash through bikers and barrels in a car and I was sold. My pockets rapidly emptied.
Ignore the System of A Down tune at the beginning, Some people have a nerve.
A.B. Cop (1990)
AB Cop was the easiest of my childhood arcade adventures. Being as I once managed to complete it on a single credit, sadly there was no one to witness my amazing skill on that fateful day in a derelict amusement arcade in Blackpool. AB ( Air bike, air biscuit) Cop took the Hang On template of third person, full immersion racing ( you had a bike to lean left and right on, or if your arcade was cheap they just had the cabinet with handle bars ) and added enemies to battle. The levels all took the same route, ram various nasty biker types before confronting the boss. You then had to use your turbo charge to jump and smash him off the road to complete the level and get a satisfying thumbs up from your rider.
The main appeal of AB Cop was the difficulty scale. It was so easy to have a single credit and get through about 3 levels before you had to dive into your pocket for a follow up go. Once you worked out the main tactic for dealing with every boss ( jump, turbo charge. steer left/right, repeat) you could rampage through the whole game on a single credit. Of course the appeal of showing off to all and sundry in the arcade by reaching the completion screen of any game was impossible to ignore. No matter how easy said game was.
BEAST BUSTERS (1989)
Long before you could take cover with a fancy foot pedal in Time Crisis and such games, rail shooters gave you a big machine gun and threw waves of enemies at you. Beast Busters ( from the ever reliable SNK stable) was always the game I saw in arcades but never managed to actually play as they always seemed to place Operation Wolf or Rambo 3 in my way as a distraction. Luckily, I found a flea pit on a family outing that only had assorted pinball tables, Asteroids and Beast Busters. No contest really, sorry Asteroids.
The wafer thin plot had you as gun nuts trying to escape a zombie infested city. Gun toting zombies at that. Pretty ahead of its time stuff? The gore was a major factor in how cool I thought this game was. Enemies exploded in blood and bone pieces, green slime was everywhere, they had zombie bikers, Jason like hockey masked monsters and then along came the absurd bosses! A driverless Jeep that shoots missiles before coming alive! A typical 80's street punk that transforms into a massive dog! A floating eye made of bodies! Next level shit for any kid. Even the soundtrack was sweet.
It had 3 f**king guns!
Party Bus
Thanks to the wonders of MAME technology you can enjoy all these titles from the comfort of your own home. You don't have to worry about all those dodgy, blatantly criminal looking dudes that used to hang around arcades, you don't have to worry about putting your hand in the never clean ashtray that adorned pretty much every machine and you don't have to worry about any bigger boys coming along and shoving you over while you where playing. The world of arcade gaming is far less dangerous these days.
P.S. If anyone can help to hook me up with any of the soundtracks to these games or other arcade classics then that would be sweet.
Holy shit, I didn't realize until just now that today is IllCon's three-year anniversary. Nice. What did you fuckers get me?
Nothing? Awesome. Well, I got you three albums from Norway's own Gehenna (no, not that one), purveyors of only the finest elven/witchy/Dracula-based black metal that country has to offer. Are you into cheesy, mid-paced, mid-90's, synth-laden forest troll music played by a bunch of dudes (and a chick) wearing capes and shit? Good! Gehenna will be right up your alley, casting forth a etherial web of faerie magick to ensnare all your wildest Ren Faire fantasies! A little too "Opera Man" for you? Tough shit, man. Sometimes corny-ass Ouija board metal with the keyboards turned up way too loud is just what the Hessian soul needs, so far be it from me to deprive you of such Narnian majesties. Three fucking years, man. Jesus.
I posted Caducity's 1995 classic The Weiliaon Wielder Questa couple weeks ago, so I figured I should follow up with the excellent Whirler of Fate which they recorded just two short years later. Fate eases off on the weird fantasy elements that made its predecessor such an oddball gem--but sweetens the deal with better riffs, tighter production, and an overall darker feel. There are still plenty of Hessian nerd-boners to be had here (what the fuck is that deal with that outro?), but Caducity's sophomore effort is a much more mature and refined beast, full of crushing grooves, sickening crunch, and enough double bass to gag a rhino. Whirler of Fate: LESS D&D, MORE MOSH. I'm OK with that.
I could't really find any acceptable Caducity band photos (besides the one I already posted), so instead, here's a picture of Elvira with Groucho Glasses on her tits:
I know what you’re thinking, not this Solstice: Not this Solstice either: This is about the epic doom metal Solstice from the UK. They (in my opinion) are the pinnacle of epic metal, be that doom or otherwise. No one has managed to pull of unironic yet not ridiculous epic metal nearly as good as they have. They are the Conan the Barbarian of metal. They are so epic they make Candlemass Conan the Destroyer. ManOwaR, in this paradigm, are Red Sonja. Sorry bros, but yall just aint got shit on Solstice.
Solstice is the brainchild of ex Sore Throat vocalist Rich Walker, cousin of Patrick Walker (formerly of the excellent Warning and currently the almost exact same sounding 40 Watt Sun). Rich also played in Pagan Altar and Isen Torr, did live vocals for Napalm Death. He also runs The Miskatonic Foundation. Starting off in the punk scene, Rich eventually moved on to doom, paralleling the career arc of Lee Dorian, but with less dancing. The band has at various time included current or former members of: Dragonforce, My Dying Bride, Cradle of Filth, While Heaven Wept, Twisted Tower Dire Mourn and others.
Solstice put out 5 demos between forming in 1990 and 1994. They are mostly slow to mid paced trad doom in the vein of Candlemass, with hints of the epicness that would follow. Some good harmonies, but overall the songwriting is lacking, although many of the songs would reappear on later albums.
Lamentations (1994) Solstice's debut full length on Candlelight, released in 1994 shows them progressing from their demo days, but still rooted in Candlemass/Bathory territory. Almost every song was previously recorded on one of the demos. They do get up and gallop a few times and "Wintermoon Rapture" has some cool stuff going on. They show a knack for harmonized leads and the songwriting is much improved. Overall this is a very good album but doesn't separate them from the pack. There is also a song called "Only the Strong." I don't know if they are Thor fans or aficionados of Capoeria. I'm 99.99% sure that they're Thor fans though. Fun Fact: Only the Strong stars Mark Dacascos, better known as The Chairman on Iron Chef America.
Halycon EP (1996) This album seems like an odds-n-ends deal: 3 new songs (two of them being a throwaway keyboard piece and a spoken word intro), a song from the demo days and a cover of ManOwaR’s “Gloves of Metal.” Despite being a scrap pile of sorts it’s also a transitional piece: the only new metal song, “To Ride with Tyr” is an upbeat ManOwaR type crusher with a slower doomy part in the middle similar to the early days. The ManOwaR influence is key here. This EP was remastered in 2000 with 3 bonus tracks, 2 songs from Lamentations and a bizarre bonus track.
New Dark Age (1998) This is by far Solstice’s finest moment. This is what makes them A Number One in my book. This is the ultimate in epic doom. It starts off strong with galloping monk impalers "The Sleeping Tyrant" and "Cimmerian Codex" and ends with the dungeon funeral dirge of "New Dark Age II."
Massive riffs pass like torches through church windows. Epic leads soar like arrows into the hearts of their enemies. This album has more of a ManOwaR influence than the earlier works, but fortunately doesn't sound like the "Kings of Metal". Vocals are good, whereas earlier albums and demos had vocalists that sometimes couldn't hold their notes long enough, Morris Ingram is pro at epic doom vocals. Everyone else on the album gets kudos to, especially the guitarists Rich Walker and Hamish Glencross for their excellent leads, harmonies and soloz. To be honest, this album is not flawless. It is long- the 1 hour 6 minutes runtime (even longer with bonus tracks) stretches my 35 minute brutal death metal attention span to the limit. It also has quite a bit of fat: 6 of the 11 tracks are acoustic/noise/spoken word/not metal which, though they help to break up the album and serve as a break, putting three of them in a row right in the middle of the album is just poor album pacing and unnescesary. Other than those missteps this album is a masterpiece. If you only download one album from this post, let this be it. If epic doom is your thing, you'll enjoy:
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